Principles and Ideals 
for the Sunday School 





Class jbAi.L&-&6_ 

Book. J5£SL 

Copyright^J? 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



PRINCIPLES AND IDEALS 
FOR THE SUNDAY SCHOOL 



Principles and Ideals 
for the Sunday School 

An Essay in Religious Pedagogy 



By 
ERNEST DE WITT BURTON 

SHAILER MATHEWS 

PROFESSORS IN THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO 



3> 



>* • ♦•, 



Chicago: The University of Chicago Press 

MDCCCCIII 



THE LIBRARY OF 
CONGRESS, 

Two Copies Received 

JUN 5 1903 

Copyright Entry 

CLASS £t- XXc. No 

COPY B. 






COPYRIGHT I9O3 
THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO 



PREFACE, 

The authors of this little book have been for 
years engaged in the work of the Sunday school 
as teachers and officers, and for almost as long 
time have been occupied as biblical instructors, 
training young men for the Christian ministry. 
For a number of years we have also had a share 
in the editorial conduct of the Biblical World, a 
journal devoted to the promotion and improve- 
ment of biblical study, both private and in schools 
of various kinds. 

Portions of the following chapters appeared 
in their original form as editorials in the Biblical 
World. They are republished here in revised 
form, with the addition of several chapters not 
previously printed, in the hope that they may 
contribute somewhat to that further development 
and improvement of the Sunday school so impera- 
tively demanded by its own splendid past and the 
widening horizon and better methods of biblical 
study. In particular it is hoped that they will 
be of service to the students for the ministry with 
whom we are associated in the Divinity School 
of the University of Chicago. 

We are well aware that we have touched very 



vi PREFACE 

lightly or passed by altogether some topics as 
germane to our subject as some of those which 
we have discussed at length. The reason of this 
is that we have written out of our own experience. 
It is for this reason in particular that we have 
said so little about the elementary division of 
the school and practically nothing concerning the 
kindergarten. We fully recognize the profound 
importance of the work in these departments of 
the Sunday school, but, having had too little ex- 
perience to give us even a conceit of wisdom 
concerning this work, we must refer our readers 
to the writings of those who have dealt specially 
with this phase of the subject. 

We venture to hope, however, that what we 
have written will be of value for teachers of those 
classes whose pupils constitute what is perhaps 
the greatest problem of the Sunday school, the 
boys and girls of grammar-school and high- 
school age. 

We wish to express to President W. R. Harper 
our sense of indebtedness, especially in refer- 
ence to the chapter upon the "Organization of 
the Graded School. " What we have there written 
has been in no small measure learned through our 
experience in the Hyde Park Baptist Sunday 
School, of which he has been for a number of 
years superintendent and we directors or teachers. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



PART I. THE TEACHER. 
Chapter I. The Purpose of the Sunday School 3 
Chapter II. ' The Teacher as a Student - - 10 
Chapter III. The Influence of the Teacher's 

Study upon Himself - -22 

Chapter IV. The Basis of Authority in Teaching 29 
Chapter V. Methods of Conducting a Class - 45 
Chapter VI. Method as Determined by the Sub- 
ject of Study - - - - 60 
Chapter VII. How to Induce a Pupil to Study - 86 
Chapter VIII. The Teacher and the Religious Life 

of the Pupil - - - - 98 
Chapter IX. The Pastor as a Teacher of Teach- 
ers no 



PART II. THE SCHOOL. 
Chapter I. The Requirements of a Graded 

School 123 

Chapter II. The Construction of a Graded Cur- 
riculum 141 

Chapter III. Examinations in the Sunday School 157 
Chapter IV. The Organization of the Graded 

School 162 

Chapter V. The Sunday-School Library - - 172 
Chapter VI. Sunday-School Benevolence - - 176 
Chapter VII. The Function of a Sunday-School 
Ritual - 
The Teaching Ministry - 



Chapter VIII 
Appendix 



184 
203 



PART I 
THE TEACHER 



CHAPTER I. 

THE PURPOSE OF THE SUNDAY SCHOOL. 

What is the purpose of the Sunday school ? Tnc purpose 
Aim clearly recognized determines means, meth- Sunday 
od, and spirit. No more fundamental question, sch ° o1 
therefore, can be asked respecting the work of 
the Sunday school than this. The answer must 
be based, not on mere names, for institutions 
often grow beyond their names; nor merely on 
past history, for the past is not necessarily the 
measure of the present. Appeal must rather be 
made to the place which the Sunday school is 
actually filling or attempting to fill in the complex 
work of the church. 

The Sunday school is somewhat more than a The Sunday 

% i • r i it- -i i r school an 

school, if by a school is meant simply a place for educational 
learning and reciting lessons. Some of its exer- instltutlon 
cises belong rather to worship than to instruction. 
Its characterization as the children's church, 
most unfortunate in some respects, is not wholly 
wrong. But instruction holds, or certainly ought 
to hold, the central place. The Sunday school 
is essentially a school, an educational institution, 
and its central task is the study and teaching of 
the Bible. Even those who dislike the name 



PRINCIPLES AND IDEALS 



The Sunday- 
school a 
religious 
institution 



" Bible school" will admit that, whatever the pur- 
pose of the school founded by Robert Raikes, 
this term correctly describes the character of the 
institution according to the now generally ac- 
cepted ideal. But if this be so, it follows that 
the Sunday school must aim directly at impart- 
ing such instruction as will justify this ideal. To 
conceive of it in any way which, will obscure its 
function as an educational institution will be fatal 
to any right conception of its work. 

Yet this is not all that is to be said. Another 
fact must be taken into account before this defi- 
nition can be accepted as adequate. The Sunday 
school as now existing is an agency of the 
Christian church. It is to be classed along with 
public worship, preaching, and prayer-meetings, 
as one of the means by which the church seeks 
to accomplish its great aim, the conversion of 
men and their cultivation in Christian character. 
Occupying this position, the Sunday school can- 
not find its ultimate aim merely in the acquisition 
or impartation of knowledge, even though it be 
knowledge of the Bible. It is true of every 
school really worthy of the name, but it is pre- 
eminently true of the Sunday school, that it must 
seek a moral and not merely an intellectual end, 
must aim at character as well as knowledge. 
And, if so, then of course the moral must be the 
ultimate aim. Knowledge of the Bible, itself the 



FOR THE SUNDAY SCHOOL 5 

proximate aim of the Sunday school, as a school, 
must be a means to the ultimate end. And the aim 
of the Sunday school as an agency of the church 
must be recognized to be to secure, through teach- 
ing of the Bible as the chief means, the conver- 
sion of the pupil and his development in Chris- 
tian character. 

If all this is true of the Sunday school as an The teaching 

J shares in 

institution, it must also be true of the teaching both these 
work in particular. It is because teaching is its P ur P 0S< 
central element that the Sunday school is 
distinctively an educational institution. That 
which gives character to the institution must it- 
self partake of the character which it gives to 
the institution. The teaching of the Sunday school 
must aim directly at the acquisition of knowledge 
of the Bible on the part of the pupil. But none 
the less consciously must it aim at the attainment 
of that moral and religious result which belongs to 
the school because it is a part of the work of the 
Christian church. The central element in the 
school cannot remain unaffected by the ultimate 
purpose for which the institution itself exists. 
The teaching of the Sunday school must seek as 
its ultimate aim the conversion of the pupil and 
his development in Christian character. 

Such a conception of the purpose of the Sun- 
day school, and in particular of its work of teach- 
ing, gives to the institution a distinct and defi- 



own 



6 PRINCIPLES AND IDEALS 

The Sunday n ite place. It distinguishes it from other schools 

school has a ^ 

distinctive which, though they may not altogether exclude 
place of its the Bible from their curr i cu i a do not make it 

the only or even the chief subject of study, and 
which, though they recognize the necessity of 
including the cultivation of character in their 
aim, assign to it a place only co-ordinate with 
the storing and training of the mind. It assigns 
to the Sunday school a definite place in the 
varied activities of the church, distinguishing 
it from the ordinary public service in which, 
though biblical instruction is included, worship 
and the immediate application of truth to life are 
the determinative elements; from the prayer- 
meeting, the characteristics of which are the 
interchange of Christian experience and the culti- 
vation of the devotional spirit ; from the evan- 
gelistic service, where the human will is directly 
addressed, and men are urged to right decision ; 
and from the philanthropic work of the church, 
in which the spirit of Christianity expresses itself 
in deeds of kindness. Such a conception of the 
work of the Sunday school recognizes the pecul- 
iar relation of our religion to the Bible, and the 
necessity that underneath worship and devotion, 
ethical instruction and the persuasion of the will, 
missions and philanthropy, there shall be a firm 
foundation of knowledge of that pre-eminent reve- 
lation of God which is the source and support 



FOR THE SUNDAY SCHOOL 7 

of Christianity. It recognizes the need of one 
service, which, having the same ultimate aim as 
that which is sought in all the activities of the 
church, shall seek that end specifically and mainly 
by instruction in the Bible. 

If it be asked why the Sunday school should Reasons for 
seek its ultimate aim of religious development in f its aim 
a sense by indirection, why the ultimate religious 
purpose should not in every service of the church 
be directly and avowedly sought, at least two 
valid answers may be given. In the first place, 
there are certain ends which, at least with some 
people, are best attained by indirection. It has 
long been recognized that the affections are best 
cultivated, not by commanding ourselves, for in* 
stance, to love those whom we ought to love, but 
by pursuing a course of action which tends indi- 
rectly to cultivate love. The same principle holds 
in the cultivation of character. What argument 
and appeal and exhortation wholly fail to accom- 
plish can with some minds — perhaps to a certain 
extent with all minds — be accomplished little by 
little through instruction, conveyed either in the 
exposition of teachings or in the study of history 
and, especially, of biography. And, in the second 
place, it must certainly be acknowledged that 
the most solid results in character cannot be 
attained except upon a broad foundation of 
knowledge. The fervent appeal, often spurning 



8 PRINCIPLES AND IDEALS 

knowledge and ignoring instruction, may seem at 
the time to be most effective in saving men and 
advancing the interests of Christianity. But all 
experience proves that alike in the life of the 
individual and in the development of the kingdom 
real and permanent progress is made only when 
zeal rests on a solid foundation of knowledge of 
the truth. The letters of Paul, especially those 
of the latter part of his life, lay great emphasis 
upon the necessity that love shall abound in 
knowledge and discernment. 
Effect of this This conception of the determinative purpose 

on the work of the Sunday school as both religious and 
of the school pedagogical has important relations to almost 
every problem of Sunday-school management. 
The character of the curriculum, the qualifica- 
tions of teachers, and the method of study and 
of instruction will all be in no small degree deter- 
mined by its acceptance or rejection. If the 
Sunday school is a school and is to attain its end 
primarily through instruction in the Bible, does 
it follow that it ought to have a definite curricu- 
lum, each year's work of which shall be adapted 
to the pupil's stage of development? And will 
a graded curriculum do away with the principle 
of uniformity so long followed ? If the Sunday 
school is a real educational institution, can it be 
carried on by untrained teachers, and, if not, what 
is the nature of the training required, and what 



ing questions 



FOR THE SUNDAY SCHOOL 9 

are the necessary qualifications, intellectual and 
moral, to be demanded in teachers ? Have we 
today, can we have in the near future, any large 
number of teachers who possess these qualifica- 
tions ? If not, must we secure proper teaching 
by a more careful instruction of teachers, and 
possibly by decreasing the number and increas- Some result- 
ing the size of classes ? And will this again 
affect in an important way our church architec- 
ture ? If the Sunday school is a part of the 
distinctively educational work of the church, does 
it demand as its leader and overseer a man 
specially trained for educational work, and spe- 
cifically for the teaching of the Bible ? Can we 
ever have trained teachers until we have at the 
head of the school a man educated in the Bible 
and in pedagogic method ? And does this in 
turn call for a new type of minister, the teaching 
minister alongside of the preaching minister? 
Finally, if instruction is the central function, 
and yet not the only function, of the Sunday 
school, what are the other legitimate departments 
of its work, and how are these departments re- 
lated to the teaching work and to one another ? 
Some of these questions will be discussed in the 
following pages. It must suffice for the present 
to raise them. 



CHAPTER II. 

THE TEACHER AS A STUDENT. 

Study All will agree that good teaching is the first 

teaching great requirement of a Sunday school that is to 
fulfil is true function. Now, teaching presup- 
poses study. There may be study that is not fol- 
lowed by teaching, but there can be no teaching 
that is not preceded by study. The teacher must 
be a student. Not that all study is study of 
books. One may teach farming having studied 
it only in the school of practice, or botany know- 
ing only what he has himself observed. One 
may conceivably teach religion on the basis of 
experience only. But in every case he who 
teaches must first have studied what he is to 
teach. Our Sunday schools are correctly, even 
if not adequately, described as Bible schools. 
They teach the Bible with a distinctly religious 
motive ; they teach religion ; they even teach 
personal religion, and base such teaching on per- 
sonal experience. Yet the Bible holds the cen- 
tral place in the teaching, and it is this which is 
supposed to form the subject-matter of instruc- 
tion. The Sunday-school teacher must there- 
fore be a student of the Bible. If, as there is 

10 



FOR THE SUNDAY SCHOOL n 

reason to fear, many of our teachers have had no 
training in the study of the Bible and have no 
definite idea how to study it, there can be few 
duties more urgent or more important for the 
pastor or superintendent than the teaching of the 
teachers how to study ; there can be no duty 
more imperative for the teacher than to learn 
how to study. 

What should be the aim of the Sunday-school Study of 

. . , . , - f , the Bible is 

teacher in his character as a student or the sea rch for its 
Bible ? Specifically the answer depends on what meamn s 
part or phase of the Bible he is to teach. If 
biblical history, then he must study its history; 
if biblical ethics, then its ethics ; if biblical the- 
ology, then its theology. But all these answers 
are included in the one answer that his task as 
teacher is to teach the meaning of the Bible, and 
his task as a student is to find the meaning of 
the Bible. It is not a mistranslation, or a mis- 
interpretation, when the words which literally 
read, "Go learn what this is, I will have mercy 
and not sacrifice, " are rendered in our English 
Bible, "Go learn what this means. " It was the 
meaning that Jesus wanted his hearers to find. 
The meaning of the Bible is the Bible. The 
student of the Bible must be first of all 
an interpreter. His first task — his whole task 
strictly as a student of any book or passage — 
is the discovery of the meaning of that book or 



12 PRINCIPLES AND IDEALS 

passage. Every apparatus or method which 
obscures from him this object or impedes his 
progress toward it is a hindrance to study. 

But how can this task be performed ? How 
can the student discover and rethink the thought 
which the writer of the book has expressed in 
the words which stand on the page ? The method 
must be for all students fundamentally the same, 
but we have in mind here especially the Sunday- 
school teacher who brings to his study a fair 
degree of intelligence, but no special linguistic 
or exegetical training. 
Attention as a First of all let it be said that a great deal can 
interpretation be accomplished by simple attention, provided 
only the purpose to discover the meaning be 
clearly and firmly held in mind. Nearly one- 
half of all our difficulty in the study of the Bible 
arises from failing to recognize what such study 
is, failing clearly to define to ourselves that our 
first object must be the discovery of the meaning 
of what we are studying. And nearly one-half 
of the remainder arises from simple inattention, 
failure to perceive that which is before our eyes, 
and which requires no special exegetical appara- 
tus to interpret. Attention will not accomplish 
everything. One sees only what he has eyes to 
• see. In study more than in any other activity of 
life the great pedagogical law holds : " To him 
that hath shall be given." The more one knows 



FOR THE SUNDAY SCHOOL 13 

already, the more one gains by each new act of 
attention. But, generally speaking, intelligent 
attention directed toward gaining the meaning of 
a writing will disclose to the student many things 
that he had never perceived before. Moreover, 
it will show him that there are certain things that 
he does not understand, and will raise questions 
concerning the meaning of what has been 
observed which it will not itself answer. Such 
interrogation is itself a great gain. To define 
the question that demands answer is to take one 
long step toward obtaining the answer. 

Attention thus prepares the way for investiga- investigation 
tion and acquisition, that is, for the search for don^ 
information beyond that which the passage itself 
yields to the student's present powers of percep- 
tion. The precise scope of such investigation 
and the line of division between attention and 
investigation will manifestly vary with the stu- 
dent. What one man perceives at a glance 
another must search out. The means of investi- 
gation available to one man may be wholly 
unknown or unusable to another. The teacher 
in the Sunday school is not generally a profes- 
sional biblical scholar. In his case as in that of 
his pupils the great question is : What can atten- 
tion do and what methods and instruments of 
investigation are available for the fairly intelli- 
gent student of the English Bible ? 



i 4 PRINCIPLES AND IDEALS 

A practical answer must distinguish two some- 
what distinct fields of study: an entire book and 
a single passage of the Bible. 
Attention it is a familiar thought today that the parts 

applied to a 

whole book of any single book of the Bible are adequately 
understood only in the light of some knowledge 
of the whole. Some knowledge, we say, since, 
of course, perfect knowledge of the whole is in 
turn dependent on knowledge of the individual 
parts. The necessity of such knowledge of the 
whole varies greatly in different books, but exists 
in some degree in respect to all. It is greatly to be 
desired that every Sunday-school teacher should 
begin his teaching of lessons from any given 
book with some large knowledge of the book as 
a whole, of the circumstances that led to its 
being written, of the purpose of the author, 
its general plan and structure. Such knowl- 
edge can usually be gained in large part from a 
careful study of the book itself, though it is fre- 
quently the case that the evidence of the book 
is intelligible only to him who knows the history 
of the period, and, indeed, often reveals itself 
only to a somewhat highly trained power of 
" attention." These facts render such prelimi- 
nary study peculiarly difficult. If, for lack of 
training in such work, the teacher is unequal to 
the task of discovering the evidence which is in 
the book itself, he will do well to call in the help 



FOR THE SUNDAY SCHOOL 15 

of one who can show him what is there, making 
use of some good work on " introduction" or the 
articles in a dictionary of the Bible. Yet he will 
do better who learns to do this work for himself, 
using first attention and then investigation. Let 
him read the book through attentively to dis- 
cover any evidences in it concerning its occasion 
and purpose, carefully noting in writing all that 
he finds. Let him seek to find out its great 
divisions, if such there be, and make out a plan 
of the book. Then, when " attention" has done 
its perfect work, let him supplement this work 
by that of " investigation," following out histori- 
cal references which are to him obscure, or other 
hints which may point to the occasion of the book, 
using for such purpose whatever trustworthy 
books are accessible. Finally, he may supple- 
ment his own work by that which other students 
have published. 

The same general method will apply to the f"-^ a 
study of a portion of a book assigned for a single passage 
particular lesson. The general scope of the book 
being before his mind, the aim of the teacher 
should be to find out as accurately as possible 
the exact thought expressed in the particular 
paragraph before him. And attention and in- 
vestigation are the two processes by which he 
must work. 

If any teacher who reads these pages has 



i6 



PRINCIPLES AND IDEALS 



Self- 
interrogation 
as an aid to 
attention 



The passage 
to the 
process of 
investigation 



been perplexed and baffled in the attempt to 
study his Bible, we commend to him the experi- 
ment of sitting down to the study of the lesson 
without commentary, " quarterly," or other help, 
and, with a clear conception of his aim as a stu- 
dent, diligently setting himself to see what is be- 
fore him. Let him ask himself the question : Do 
I understand the meaning of these successive 
words, as they were used by the writer ? Do I 
know what he meant by the individual sentences? 
Do I perceive the connection of thought, as it 
lay in his mind, between the successive sen- 
tences ? Do I grasp the meaning of this whole 
paragraph ? Let him treat the book, or the 
portion of the book, as he would treat a letter 
which he had just received, and whose meaning 
he was deeply desirous of understanding. In 
many cases we are sure he will be surprised at 
the result of this simple effort to see what is 
before his eyes. 

If, when in any stage of the process attention 
has done its best, there still remain unanswered 
questions, or if there be any doubt what is the 
correct answer, recourse must be had to investi- 
gation. If the student is in doubt what a word 
or phrase meant in the mind of the writer, he 
must seek trustworthy information. If it is a 
single word, an English dictionary will perhaps 
define it. If it is a concrete term like "syna- 



FOR THE SUNDAY SCHOOL 17 

gogue" or " Pharisee, " an ordinary dictionary of 
the Bible will usually give the needed help. If 
it is one of the profounder terms of the biblical 
vocabulary, such as " righteousness, " " grace, " 
"eternal," or the terms that seem so simple in 
their literal sense, but which, when we come to 
ask for the thought for which they stand, are 
found to be so difficult of apprehension, such as 
"4ife," "light," "darkness," he may search in The use of 

7 J dictionaries 

vain in the dictionary; for, unfortunately, there is and commen- 

as yet no adequate dictionary of biblical words investigation 

for the English reader. In such case he must 

resort to some other source. And here comes 

in the value of the commentary (the term being 

used to include the commentary portion of all 

the special lesson helps). Its proper function is 

not to save the student the trouble of giving 

attention, but, first of all, to answer the questions 

that attention has raised but cannot answer. 

The question answered, the word defined by The use of 
dictionary or by commentary, attention resumes otherhel P s 
its work to discover now, if possible, by help of 
this added information, more of the thought 
than was perceived before. If still there remain 
unanswered questions, or if new ones are now 
raised — for it is a secondary function of the 
commentary to raise questions that untrained 
attention fails to raise for lack of being intent 
enough — he must betake himself again to such 



1 8 PRINCIPLES AND IDEALS 

helps as are in his reach, always bringing, if 
possible, his question with him for answer ; or, if 
he already have a provisional answer, comparing 
this with the answer of the student who wrote 
the commentary, and judging as wisely as pos- 
sible which is the true answer. By such process 
as this, combining attention and investigation, 
seeking always the whole meaning of the pas- 
sage, the whole thought of the writer, laying all 
trustworthy sources of help under contribution, 
but always making them serve him, not sub- 
mitting himself to be led blindly by them, the 
student may come to such apprehension of the 
meaning of the Scripture as is possible to him. 
After inter- Will these two processes of attention and in- 

appHcarion vestigation prepare the teacher to teach ? Not 
necessarily. But they will infallibly give him 
material for teaching. Often they will make the 
pedagogical process very easy. But the Sunday- 
school teacher is not merely a teacher in the nar- 
rower sense of the term. He is also a preacher, 
as every good preacher is also a teacher. He 
is concerned, not simply with the presentation 
or impartation of truth, but has to do also with 
the application of it to his pupils, with its moral 
effect on their hearts and conduct. This means 
that the teacher, besides being an interpreter of 
the Bible, must be a student of humanity also, 
and likewise an orator, in the best sense of that 



FOR THE SUNDAY SCHOOL 19 

term. He must not merely discover the mean- Real teaching 
ing of a portion of the Bible for himself; he m0V esthe 
must study it also from the point of view of p u p ]1 
the pupil. Dr. Henry Clay Trumbull has well 
insisted that there is no teaching by the teacher 
unless there is also learning by the pupil. 
This principle applies in all teaching, whether 
of arithmetic or geography or Scripture. But 
there is a further fact that must be remem- 
bered by the Sunday-school teacher. It belongs 
to his work not simply to inform and train the 
mind of his pupil, but to bring the truth to him 
in such a way that it shall influence him to right 
feeling, choice, and action. And study is as 
truly required to prepare the teacher to do this 
as it is to enable him to discover for himself the 
truth he is to present to the mind of his pupil. 

Thus to the task of discovering the meaning Therefore, 
by attention and investigation the teacher must stud | the 
even as student add that of the application of the 
lesson to the needs of his pupils. Having asked 
himself, "What can I see here, and what can I 
find out that I do not at once see?" it still 
remains to inquire, " How does this truth apply 
to my pupils ?" To answer this question in the 
study — and it must not be left to the spur of the 
moment in teaching — requires knowledge of the 
pupil, sympathy with him, and imagination to 
conceive his attitude of mind, his likes and dis- 



zo PRINCIPLES AND IDEALS 

likes, his temptations and his aspirations. One 
might even say that the best way in which a 
teacher can study is by imagining himself his 
own pupil. No part of the teacher's work is 
more difficult or delicate. For no part of it is it 
more difficult to formulate rules. A few sugges- 
tions may, however, be ventured. First, let the 
teacher remember that he is to apply that alone 
Apply the which he has found to be the meaning of the 
^ached S by passage which he is teaching. Hence applica- 
mterpretation t j on can come only after interpretation. Only 
when attention and investigation have done their 
work in discovering the meaning of the passage 
under study is the teacher prepared to consider 
the question of application. It is one of the be- 
setting sins of the teacher to rush headlong to 
application without taking the time for patient in- 
terpretation. In the second place, it is well to re- 
member that the application which the pupil makes 
for himself is often more forcible than any that 
the teacher can make. The clear presentation of 

Let truth a religious truth, the forcible picturing of a char- 
make its own . j ij -it j-j. i_*i. 

application acter, good or bad, will often preach its own ser- 
mon most effectively. Let the teacher then be 
sure that he himself clearly sees and that his pupil 
clearly perceives the event, the character, the 
teaching with which the lesson deals — and some- 
times he may be content to leave it there. Yet 
still again let it be remembered that, especially in 



FOR THE SUNDAY SCHOOL 21 

biographical and historical study, the most for- 
cible and helpful lessons are taught, not by single 
incidents, but by longer surveys of history, and 
by prolonged contact with the character. This 
is pre-eminently true of the study of the life of 
Jesus Christ. This exerts its most helpful in- 
fluence on the mind that with patient study seeks Don't force 
to master the facts of that life and to understand results 
the person. Results are not to be attained at the 
end of each lesson. Do not make the mistake of 
concealing the life itself in the multiplicity of 
"lessons" and applications. Yet, finally, do not 
be afraid of application, and at times of pointed 
application. Study diligently beforehand both 
the lesson and the pupil, that you may dis- 
cover whether there is truth here taught or 
illustrated which has a direct bearing on the 
lives of your pupils ; and then so direct your 
teaching that this truth may, if possible, impress 
itself forcibly on the mind of your pupil. Do not 
force a foreign meaning into the passage that 
you may have it to apply. This is alike dis- 
honest and disastrous in its influence on your 
pupil. Sometimes leave the truth to the pupil's 
own conscience to enforce. But never forget But be sure 
that your teaching fails of its highest end if in co ^ e , ey 
some way the truth does not both reach the mind 
and move the heart of your pupil. The ultimate 
end of all teaching is the conversion of the pupil 
and his building up in Christian character. 



CHAPTER III. 



THE INFLUENCE OF THE TEACHER'S STUDY 
UPON HIMSELF. 

shall the The attentive reader of the preceding chapter 
study only ma y perhaps have turned its pages with the ques- 
mteiiectuaiiy? t j on more Q r less distinctly in his mind : Is the 
teacher's study, then, to be a purely intellectual 
work, a mere search for meanings? If so, whence 
is there to come to him any spiritual benefit, 
whence is the pupil to gain that spiritual help 
which is the ultimate end of all teaching of the 
Bible? The question is a fair one. It is axio- 
matic that the teacher who gains no spiritual 
help from his study will impart none in his 
teaching. If his method of study is such that it 
brings him no uplift or strength, it can hardly 
have a different effect upon his pupil. Is the 
method which we have been describing, then, 
one which will be barren of spiritual result for 
the teacher himself? 

First of all, let it be answered that the 
method, looked at purely on its intellectual side, 
is not guaranteed to produce spiritual results for 
either teacher or pupil. The interpretative pro- 
cess has in itself no moral virtue over and above 



Investigation 
not necessa- 
rily religious 



22 



FOR THE SUNDAY SCHOOL 23 

any other form of mental activity. Nor is the 
interpretation of the Bible certain to lead to 
obedience to the truth it may discover, or fel- 
lowship with the God who gave the truth. Inter- 
pretation can of itself give only perception of 
the truth, not acceptance or assimilation of it. 
To a mind in spiritual sympathy with God, and 
in love with truth, interpretation will so present 
the truth as to make possible the assimilation of 
it and an obedience to it. Without such spirit- 
ual sympathy, interpretation can only flash the 
light ineffectually upon a mind insensitive and 
irresponsive. Indeed, more than this is to be 
said. The lack of sympathy dulls even the 
powers of perception. The mind sees most 
quickly and clearly that which it loves to see. 
He who has no love of beauty stares with unper- 
ceiving, unappreciative eyes at the artist's master- 
piece. He who has no love for spiritual and The religious 
moral truth can never understand such books as pe n S abie for 
those which compose the Bible. It cannot be too t ^ e ® tu ^? 1 t 

r of the Bible 

strongly or too often affirmed that a merely in- 
tellectual, non-religious study of the Scriptures 
is not only spiritually unfruitful, but unscien- 
tific. A man who studies, be it never so in- 
tently, the prophets simply to discover political 
history, or the Pentateuch solely in search of 
constituent documents, may easily fail to find 
anything beyond that which he seeks. Spiritu- 



24 



PRINCIPLES AND IDEALS 



Spiritual 
sympathy a 
condition not 
a substitute 
for study 



al sympathy is indispensable for the sound in- 
terpretation of books written to convey spiritual 
truth. As the Bible is intended to set forth re- 
ligious truth, so must it be studied in a religious 
spirit. Hence arises the need of prayer in con- 
nection with study of the Bible. Only in the 
atmosphere that prayer creates, the atmos- 
phere of sympathy with God and truth, of 
desire to know the truth, to act in accord- 
ance with it and to bring others into fellow- 
ship with God through it, can the teacher gain 
a true insight into the truths which the Bible 
teaches. 

But let it not be overlooked that this spiritu- 
al sympathy with divine truth is the condition 
of successful interpretative study, not the substi- 
tute for it. When we insist upon the need of 
studying in the atmosphere of prayer, we do but 
emphasize, not retract, all that was said in the 
previous chapter concerning the necessity of 
maintaining constantly the interpretative aim and 
pursuing it earnestly with attention and investi- 
gation. Prayer, "the Christian's vital breath," is 
also the interpreter's clear atmosphere. 

But granted that the teacher studies earnestly 
and prayerfully, shall he expect and demand 
a definite and an immediately appreciable spir- 
itual blessing, daily manna out of heaven, so to 
speak? Is he to be dissatisfied with himself or 



FOR THE SUNDAY SCHOOL 25 

with his way of studying if he is not able to 
taste each day the joy of a conscious elevation 
of spiritual life? Is he to regard his teaching as 
a failure if it does not work like results in his 
pupils? 

Any teacher knows that in the realm of Must religious 
study harvest does not follow immediately upon Bible study 
seedtime. The student of chemistry does not be immediate? 
expect that his first reaction or any later one will 
immediately lead him into a new consciousness 
of mastery of his science, nor does the student 
of history expect to get a correct knowledge of 
the laws of human development when he first 
begins the study of Greece. Each may find his 
enthusiasm growing ; each may occasionally be 
startled into a new appreciation of the truth he is 
unfolding, but neither is concerned continually 
with his enthusiasms or with his appreciation of 
the teachings of nature or history. Each knows 
that the more data he obtains the broader will be 
his outlook and the more intelligent his interest 
in his particular subject. But to seek at the end 
of any hour of study an answer to the question 
whether he were becoming a better chemist or a 
better historian would be to dissipate his energy 
and defeat his very ambitions. 

So in the realm of Bible study. Often spir- 
itual insight and uplift come immediately upon 
the reading of a passage. There are times in 



26 



PRINCIPLES AND IDEALS 



To seek 
immediate 
quantitative 
results both 
unnatural 
and dangerous 



Spiritual 
meanings to 
be discovered, 
not invented 



men's lives when they are conscious of a most 
rapidly growing Christian experience, but such 
moments are generally retrospective. Men are 
convinced that they have grown rather than they 
are growing. He who constantly attempts to 
uproot his Christian experience in order to meas- 
ure its development makes his life miserable 
with his introspection. The kingdom of God is 
to be established and developed in accordance 
with natural laws. As the plant grows imper- 
ceptibly to fruition, so, in the words of Jesus, is 
the kingdom of God to grow secretly, one does 
not know how, and gradually; first the blade, 
then the ear, then the full corn in the ear. The 
leaven, though it leaven the whole lump, is not 
to accomplish its mission at once, and a long 
time separates the mustard seed, the smallest of 
all seeds, and the mustard plant, the greatest of 
all herbs. To disregard this law of nature is to 
endanger not only one's peace of mind, but the 
truth of Scripture. Spiritual teaching is often 
not to be obtained from a specific passage by any 
legitimate method of interpretation, for the 
reason that it contains none. The constant search 
for such teaching, coupled with the determina- 
tion to extract a certain amount of spiritual 
food at all costs and within a given time, is certain, 
by inducing the student to seek, not what the 
Scripture meant, but what he wants it to mean, 



growth 



FOR THE SUNDAY SCHOOL 27 

to lead to a misuse of Scripture and a positive 
perversion of its teachings. 

What, then, may we say is the true method of Bi ^e study 

J J and normal 

biblical study for the student and teacher who spiritual 
desires to get from it a real spiritual result both 
for himself and for his pupils ? At the risk of 
undue repetition we reply : First, he must study 
the Scriptures with the determination to per- 
ceive and appreciate as thoroughly as possible 
exactly what the author of the book or passage 
intended to say. It is not for the interpreter 
to add to or subtract from this meaning. 
Second, the student should study in a sympa- 
thetic spirit; and this implies that he is to 
endeavor to put himself under divine influence 
by prayer. Having thus endeavored to get at 
the truth precisely as it is, and to bring himself 
as nearly as possible to the author of all truth, 
he should, in the third place, have such confidence 
in that truth and in that author as to believe that 
spiritual growth is inevitable. As a man has 
confidence in the power of God as revealed in the 
outer world, so should he trust God as he is re- 
vealed in the laws of human nature. Divine truth 
will not return to its maker void of results. He 
who seeks to apprehend exactly the teachings of 
prophet or apostle or the Christ, and who is will- 
ing to incorporate in his conduct such truth as 
fast as it is revealed, need not be seeking for 



28 PRINCIPLES AND IDEALS 

The truth to quantitative spiritual growth. Such a student is 

produce 6 working, not only patiently, but scientifically, and 

results such s tudy can no more fail to produce spiritual 

character than the earth can fail to produce a 

harvest when once the seed is planted in it. 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE BASIS OF AUTHORITY IN TEACHING. 

I. 

One of the most interesting and vital questions Shall teaching 
connected with religious instruction was opened Sunday school 
not long since by the report of the United States be / <a uthori- 

23 J r tative'? 

Commissioner of Education upon Sunday schools. 
If we understand it, the position taken in the 
report is that the pupils in the Sunday school 
should not be taught to investigate, but, with 
minds kept from all questions as to biblical diffi- 
culties and problems, should be taught religion 
upon authority. Such a view as this, therefore, con- 
ceives of the relation of the teacher to the 
pupil as that of one who imparts truth to minds 
incapable of accepting truth on other grounds 
than that of the authority of the teacher or 
church. 

It is not difficult to appreciate the strength of The 

i ... . i . • n .. ,. justification of 

such a position as this, especially on its negative J such teac hi n g 
side of protest against introducing the discussion 
of biblical " problems " in the Sunday school. Most 
of the pupils in our Sunday schools are but chil- 
dren, and to bring to them questions as to the au- 
thorship of the Psalms, or of the authorship of the 

29 



3 o PRINCIPLES AND IDEALS 

epistLe to the Hebrews, would be to confuse their 
minds without bringing them any information 
of vital importance. Even in the case of older 
pupils it is still true that many of the problems 
connected with more technical biblical study are 
altogether unsuited for discussion in ordinary 
Sunday-school classes. To bring to an immature 
mind a problem over which the best scholars of 
the world are perplexed would be to awaken doubt 
rather than interest, and, while it is not true that 
doubt is the worst curse that can befall a man, it 
is none the less advisable as far as possible to 
save a mind from doubts which are not likely to 
be laid. 

It is also true that the Sunday school is not 
the place in which to instruct even adult classes 
in the detailed methods of criticism and exegesis. 
Although there may be exceptional classes in 
Sunday school where advanced methods are pos- 
sible, as a general rule it must be held that the 
instruction given in the Sunday school must be 
comparatively simple. 
What is But what shall be said of the positive side, the 

"authority"? assertion that teaching must rest upon authority? 
To whose authority is the teacher to appeal? To 
his own or to that of his church as expressed in its 
creed? The problem is perhaps not so simple as 
at first sight it seems. 

If one approaches the question from the first 



FOR THE SUNDAY SCHOOL 31 

point of view, and asks how many Sunday-school 
teachers are authorities because of their profes- 
sional attainments, it must be said that the per- 
centage of such teachers is small. Occasionally, 
it is true, the pastor of the church, or some 
instructor in a theological seminary or college, 
conducts a class for scientific investigation, but 
even in such cases it is not always true that the 
teacher has any such mastery of the details of 
the question as to make his opinions of weight 
simply because it is he rather than some other 
person who utters them. 

Again, if one ask whether the teacher is to in- Not that of 

, ... , . . a church 

sist that a thing is true because it is supposed to 
represent the position of his church, then such a 
method of teaching seems to be far more question- 
able. What warrant has the teacher of the Sunday 
school for speaking as if he or she could infalli- 
bly express the opinion of a church? And if this 
were possible, it would still be necessary to face 
the fact that since the Reformation it has hardly 
been true that ecclesiastical authority has been 
everywhere recognized as legitimate in religious 
teaching. Certainly, among those great bodies of 
Christians who are chiefly interested in Sunday 
schools, to speak of an authority on the basis of 
which a teacher may impart instruction, regard- 
less of reasons, is an anachronism. Until the 
infallibility of the Sunday-school teacher as the 



3 2 



PRINCIPLES AND IDEALS 



The teacher's 
authority that 
of the Scrip- 
ture 



And this 
means the 
authority of 
an interpreted 
Scripture 



interpreter of the church, and of the church as 
an expounder of truth, is beyond dispute, we may 
well question whether, instead of pronouncing 
one's opinion upon disputed matters, it would 
not be better to avoid discussions of such mat- 
ters altogether, and limit religious instruction to 
that wide field in which appeal can be made to 
the teachings of Jesus and of the other men 
whose words have been preserved in the Bible. 
Here appeal to authority, namely, not the au- 
thority of the teacher, or of his church, but that 
of the prophet, apostle, or Christ whose words 
are quoted — that is, broadly speaking, of the 
Scripture — will be by most minds recognized as 
legitimate and felt to be powerful. And because 
such appeal undoubtedly has a sound basis, how- 
ever difficult it might be for teacher or pupil to 
expound the argument on which it rests, the 
teacher may well content himself in most cases 
with resting upon such Scriptural teachings with- 
out discussion. 

But this in turn raises the question whether 
the teacher who recognizes and whose pupils rec- 
ognize the authority of Scripture shall claim 
authority for his interpretation and application 
of that Scripture. For if teaching is to be in the 
fullest sense authoritative, both interpretation and 
application must in some way reach the mind 
with authority. Can the teacher safely make this 



FOR THE SUNDAY SCHOOL 33 

claim? Nothing is easier than to misinterpret . 
the words of another. Even in conversation the 
liability to misunderstanding is so great that few 
men are content to leave important matters to 
unwritten contracts. But the difficulty is even 
greater in the case of words spoken by men long 
since dead; for ignorance as to the circumstances 
under which they were spoken, the peculiar char- 
acteristics of their authors, indefinable changes 
in the meaning of terms, all combine to hinder 
one age from accurately understanding the words 
of another. 

This difficulty can indeed be to a considerable Thefinaiityof 
extent overcome by one who will deliberately 
undertake to meet it, and every teacher is bound 
to overcome it as far as possible. The man who 
would understand another's words must rigidly 
exclude from his mind any meaning which he 
thinks those words ought to possess, or which 
he would like to find in them ; and with a self- 
effacing honesty seek to discover exactly that 
which the writer meant and nothing else. And The moral 
this brings one face to face with a moral element interpretation 
in a teacher's use of the Bible. The fact that*the 
final meaning may be reached lays him under 
moral obligation to find it, if possible. The fact 
that such certainty as yet is lacking in many pas- 
sages of the Scripture is no ground for his arro- 
gating to himself the license of understanding a 



34 



PRINCIPLES AND IDEALS 



The 

transition 
from 

interpretation 
to application 



passage in any way that he sees fit. There can 
be but one meaning to a passage, and, sooner 
or later, that meaning is to be found. To use 
a passage in any other way than that justified by 
well-recognized methods of interpretation is as 
dishonest as it would be in reporting a saying 
of a friend to give it a different meaning from 
that which it really possessed. No novelty, no 
depth of spirituality, no attempt to defend or 
modify a biblical teaching, can justify the use 
of a passage of Scripture in any other than its 
original meaning. To find this original meaning, 
which alone has true Scriptural authority, is not 
an impossible task, but it is often a difficult one, 
and the teacher who would claim authoritatively 
to have interpreted Scripture must be well 
equipped for his work. 

But even after the exact meaning of a pas- 
sage has been gained, the teacher who wishes to 
appeal to inspired authority lacks something 
of complete preparation. How shall he, after he 
has once gained possession of the exact thought 
of Jesus, or prophet, or apostle, apply it to the 
needs of his pupils? Unless we mistake greatly, 
many teachers fail utterly at this point. Having 
obtained the meaning of a passage, instead of 
teaching it, they teach about it. The lesson be- 
comes a collection of stories and miscellaneous 
truth, not the development and the application 



FOR THE SUNDAY SCHOOL 35 

of the authoritative word. It may be interesting, 
but a melange of truths will have little influence 
in stimulating or educating the Christian spirit. 
Still less can it appeal with authority to the 
pupil's conscience. 

And yet it is no easy matter to translate the Such 
thought of one age into moral dynamics for an- dependent 
other. To accomplish it the teacher must know upon historical 

insight 

not alone what the words of a text mean, but 
what it meant in the circumstances under which 
it was uttered. Historical knowledge and a keen 
perception of historical relations are indispen- 
sable. A call to live in tents, a rebuke for long- 
ings for Egyptian leeks and onions, a promise to 
make fishermen into fishers of men, each in itself 
is intelligible, but its application to modern life 
somewhat remote. If it be accurately under- 
stood in its historical settings, each is seen to 
contain truths that are full of present-day value. 
And the same is true of many another passage 
of Scripture. But such skill in this work as will 
give one full assurance that he is rightly apply- 
ing the very truth of Scripture to modern life 
belongs to the few, not the many. 

Such considerations should go far toward pre- 
venting a teacher's dogmatizing to his class, and 
should keep him ever mindful of the distinc- 
tion between the authoritative truth of the 
Scripture and that version and application of 



3 6 PRINCIPLES AND IDEALS 

it which he presents to his pupil and which, 
despite his best endeavor, will always be some- 
what affected by the medium through which it 
should not has passed. He ought to teach with conviction 
scLdeduLte and with enthusiasm. But he will do well still 
as well as to remember that his authority is a qualified one, 

instruct? . , . 

and he will be wise to cultivate a respect for the 
mind and conscience of his pupil, without which 
indeed good teaching is impossible. It is signifi- 
cant that at the same time that the claim is made 
that religious teaching must be authoritative, the 
tendency of pedagogical science is toward the 
recognition of the child's individuality and of the 
rightfulness of his claim to be allowed to investi- 
gate and to ask questions. It is very true that 
there are some questions in religion which a 
child can ask though an older person cannot 
answer them in a way to satisfy a philosopher, 
but it is always possible for the teacher himself 
to deal frankly with the pupils' questions and to 
set him an example of honesty in dealing with 
the Bible. An intelligent boy or girl who 
five days in the week is being trained to ask 
questions and not to rest satisfied until he has 
obtained their answer will not be long in detect- 
ing the difference between the instruction which 
deals with nature and that which deals with 
religion, if the latter be merely opinionative and 
dogmatic. Why may not the pupil's mind be 



FOR THE SUNDAY SCHOOL 37 

treated as if it were as rational in its search after 
God and truth as it is in its search after the ex- 
planation of other things? 

And one may go farther. Even if it be granted Provision for 

. the religious 

that with the younger pupils a certain degree growth of the 
of ex cathedra teaching is advisable, provision pupl1 
ought to be made as rapidly as possible for de- 
veloping these pupils' power of independent faith 
as they grow mature. If Paul hesitated to exer- 
cise lordship over the faith of the Corinthians, a 
teacher of a Sunday-school class may well follow 
his example. Sometime in the pupil's life he 
must be able to stand alone within the circle of 
Christian teachings. It is the duty of the Sunday 
school so to train his mind that such independ- 
ence may be intelligent and acquired without the 
painful processes of reconstruction. Every man 
as he grows mature must himself discover the seat 
of authority in religion, and he is a poor teacher 
who never prepares his pupils to make that dis- 
covery. 

It is assertive, opinionative teaching in the The 

1 advantage of 

Sunday school that has led so many of our teaching 
Sunday-school pupils, as they mature, to give up lnvestl s atlon 
Christianity as anything more than a mystical 
faith — a thing to be experienced, but not under- 
stood. If the minds of these persons had been 
from the very beginning trained to interpret the 
Bible and to grapple with religious problems fear- 



38 PRINCIPLES AND IDEALS 

lessly and earnestly in the light of its actual 
teachings, if they had been taught proper methods 
of study, looking toward the development of a 
power of independent judgment, it is hardly con- 
ceivable that they should have experienced such 
a reaction against Christianity as a rational thing. 
No small share of infidelity, we believe, is trace- 
able to ignorant and overcertain instruction in the 
Sunday school. Nowhere is reform more needed. 

II. 

Authority But what is to take the place of dogmatism? 

finally that of . , . . , ... r 

truth Certainly not a hesitant and timid retailing of un- 

certainties. To substitute the teacher's doubts for 
his convictions is to trade silver for lead. Obvi- 
ously the object to be sought is to put the pupil in 
possession of the pure gold of truth; to beget in 
him personal convictions as near to the real truth 
as possible ; to lead him to see and feel for himself 
the intrinsic and permanent authority of the 
teachings of the Bible, and to build them into his 
life. To do this let the teacher himself set the 
example of assuming toward the Scripture the 
humble attitude of the interpreter, and toward 
the truth when found the humble attitude of obe- 
dience, and let him train his pupils to do the same. 
Let him seek not so much by the weight of author- 
ity to drive home the interpretation and appli- 
cation of the Scripture which he has discovered 



FOR THE SUNDAY SCHOOL 39 

or accepted as to bring the pupil face to face in 
a receptive attitude of mind with the truth, that it 
may make its own powerful appeal. In short, 
let the teacher in the Sunday school understand 
that his duty is not to enforce his own views upon 
the pupil, but to lead that pupil to study the 
Bible honestly and to recognize and obey truth. 
The result will be that, while there may be fewer 
men and women who believe blindly the truths 
which as children they have received from some- 
one else, there will be more who are believing 
intelligently and vitally the very heart of Chris- 
tianity; for they will find the basis of all religious 
authority for themselves in the truth of Jesus and 
its applicability to human needs. 

But it will be needful also for the teacher, The Bible not 
especially for the teacher of the more mature a coll . ec . tion of 

1 J atomistic 

pupils, to adopt for himself and to impart to his truths 
pupils a proper method in the use of the Bible 
as the one book that contains the final word upon 
God's character and man's duty. Such a method 
must rest upon a right conception of the nature of 
the Bible, and such a conception in turn will nat- 
urally spring from that open-minded spirit of 
interpretation of which we have spoken above. 
Coming to it in this spirit he will avoid the fatal 
mistake of looking upon the Bible, and teaching 
his pupils to look upon it, as a collection of 
atomistic proof-texts. So to consider it is to 



4° 



PRINCIPLES AND IDEALS 



It is the 
record and 
product of a 
developing 
revelation 



Biblical litera- 
ture as the 
product of an 
historical 
process 



miss its greatest lessons. But he will also come 
to see that the Bible is something more than the 
immortal literature of a nation and of a religious 
community. It is that of course. One has but 
to look at the Hebrew Bible, with its three col- 
lections of sacred books, to realize that he has 
before him the attempts made by the Jewish peo- 
ple at different periods to collect those writings 
which they judged of the highest worth. But not 
only is the Bible a collection of literature ; this 
literature is also the record and the product of a 
historical and a developing revelation. And to 
view it in this light is to see most clearly its 
authority and the ground of that authority. 

It is not difficult to help pupils to see this 
development. The painstaking effort of scholars, 
however much they may differ among themselves 
as to details, has placed beyond dispute this fact, 
that in the Bible we have the literary productions 
of every stage of the rise and fall of the Hebrew 
people. The saga, the folk-tale, the chronicle of 
the preliterary period ; the history and legislation, 
political and religious teaching of national matur- 
ity; the lamentation, the prayer, and the song of 
praise and faith from years of national misery — 
all these have gone to make up the Old Testa- 
ment. Similarly in the New Testament there are 
the writings of the original apostles, of Paul, and 
of those who were taught by apostles. It is a 



FOR THE SUNDAY SCHOOL 41 

comparatively simple matter to make one's pupils 
realize how slow was the rise of such literature, 
and thus to realize how gradually the world was 
prepared for the life and teaching of Jesus. 

And they may be easily taught something This literature 
even more important. The recognition of the ther( ; cordofa 

* ° growing 

fact that the literature composing the Bible is the revelation 
product of different ages and diverse situations 
carries with it the recognition of the Bible as a 
record not only of a growing knowledge of God, 
but of a growing revelation of God. Popular the- 
ology too often fails to grasp the significance of 
this fact. According to it, it would seem as if 
there existed before the foundation of the world 
a certain number of divine truths, all absolute, 
none relative. A page of these truths, so to 
speak, was given to Abraham, another to David, 
another to Hosea, another to Paul. The com- 
plete collection of these revelations constitutes 
the Bible. In accordance with such a view, reve- 
lation is always absolute, of equal value for all 
time. Clearly enough, any recognition of the 
historical processes which gave rise to the men, 
the civilization, and the thought of the Scrip- 
tural literature is utterly inconsistent with such 
conception. But in reality revelation is impos- 
sible apart from human experience, and therefore 
conditioned by the moral capacities of the person 
through whom it is made. Only the pure in 
heart can see God fully. 



42 PRINCIPLES AND IDEALS 



The historical And so it follows that the teacher must permit 

interpretation - . t . ., , . . , . 

of a and assist his pupil to see that revelation through 

progressive morally imperfect men may be outgrown. The 

revelation j i j o 

very fact that a truth was sufficient for one age 
may make it, at least in part, insufficient for that 
age's successor; for revelation is dynamic; it not 
only fills but enlarges one's needs, and it can be 
final only as the moral development of the 
person through whom it is made is complete. 
If the law was a schoolmaster to lead us to 
Christ, the folk-tale was a schoolmaster to lead to 
the law. To elevate every religious hope and 
expression of an imperfect man living in primi- 
tive conditions into infallible, eternal religious 
legislation is to lose sight of the significance of 
the Bible itself. The supreme moral revelation 
of God can be that alone which has been made in 
the life and words of Him who, though tempted 
like prophet and apostle, was yet without sin. 
distinction This means, therefore, someone may ask, that 

between truth one should preach only the teachings of Jesus ? 
historical Certainly not* There are truth and divine reve- 
form lation throughout the Bible ; but one must learn 

to distinguish between the form and the content 
of truth, and to discover in the very process of 
gradual unfolding of truth and the superseding 
of revelation by larger revelation the disclosure 
and the criteria of the permanent. The moun- 
tain peak, not the valley; the generic, not the 



FOR THE SUNDAY SCHOOL 43 

specific; the Christlike, not the merely Jewish — is 
the eternal element of the progressive revelation. 
From this point of view the entire literature of 
the Bible is full of inspired teaching. 

It may be too much to say that every pupil or Thls ! ftind ?" 

J J j l 1 mental condi- 

every teacher can grasp this conception and hold tkm of correct 
it firmly and consistently. Nor is it to be in- eac mg 
sisted that the theoretical aspect of the matter 
should be much discussed in the Sunday school. 
What must be said is that, as the underlying pos- 
tulate of Sunday-school teaching, the atomistic 
conception of the Bible and the conception of the 
equal and perpetual authority of all its teachings 
from Genesis to Revelation must gradually give 
place to that view of the progressive character of 
revelation which alone the Bible itself justifies. 

Indeed, the transition has already begun, and The historical 
with most helpful results. We know the message method 
of the prophets as never before ; we under- acceptance 
stand the sorrow or the joy that fills the Psalms ; 
we read the Pauline letters in the light of the 
times that gave them birth. How far do these 
historical interpretations resolve difficulties and 
illuminate matters already judged clear! A 
child taught that the Bible is a record of such a 
progressive revelation will early learn to see in 
every step of Hebrew history " fbreshadowings 
of the Christ/' and in no mechanical fashion 
will come to see how in Jesus all that was per- 



44 PRINCIPLES AND IDEALS 

manent of earlier revelation was preserved and 
made a matter of life. As he grows older he will 
find little temptation to abandon his early faith. 
The " discrepancies " of the Bible which have 
The bearing played such havoc both with the faith of the liter- 
the faith of alist and the conscience of the apologist will dis- 
the maturing so i ve before him. A young Christian so trained 
will, as he reaches maturity, see the growth of the 
divine element in human experience, and will wel- 
come all truth, whether it comes through the 
imperfect life of a David or the perfect life of his 
Lord. He will use the Bible gladly and intelli- 
gently as a source of supreme teaching, because 
it reveals to him eternal truths. But, because he 
knows that this truth came but gradually and 
through men conditioned and limited by circum- 
stances and forms of thought in part or wholly 
outgrown, he will not confuse revelation in all its 
stages with final authority. That he will find in 
the truths disclosed and attested by the whole 
progress of historic revelation, and brought to 
full and clear expression in the words and life of 
Jesus. 



CHAPTER V. 

METHODS OF CONDUCTING A CLASS. 
In Sunday-school teaching, as in all intelligent The problem 

i r 1 • i °f method 

self-directed work, method is subordinate to pur- 
pose. But it by no means follows that method 
is unimportant. A good method consists simply 
in such an adjustment of means to the exist- 
ing conditions as is conducive to the attainment 
of the end in view. If the end is important, such 
adjustment is inferior in importance only to the 
end itself. Method, we have said, using the 
term generically. But it would be more exact to 
speak of " methods " in Sunday-school teaching; 
for the pupils of our Sunday schools cover so 
wide a range of age and intelligence, and the 
study of the Bible itself includes so many differ- 
ent specific kinds of study, that it is highly im- 
probable that the same method is equally adapted 
to all classes and all subjects. Nor is it good 
pedagogy to leave the choice of method to chance 
or the mere instinct of the teacher. A " natural 
teacher " will accomplish much by any method, 
and will to a certain extent instinctively adjust 
his method to the particular problem presented 
by a given lesson and a given class; but not all 

45 



46 



PRINCIPLES AND IDEALS 



Classification 
of methods 



i. The 

recitation 
method 



teachers are " natural teachers," and even for 
those who are such, instinctive, unreflecting ad- 
justment of means to end can hardly do the work 
of reflection and intelligence. Sunday-school 
teaching is a work of too much importance to be 
done with any less than the most intelligent pos- 
sible adjustment of methods to existing con- 
ditions and ends in view. 

What, then, are the possible methods of so 
conducting a Sunday-school class as to make 
one's teaching actually effective ? Leaving out 
of account for the present the very youngest schol- 
ars, we may name four methods which singly or 
in combination may be employed in Sunday-school 
teaching: the recitation method, the conversa- 
tion method, the lecture method, the seminar 
method. 

i . The recitation method presupposes the assign- 
ment of specific tasks and the report of the pu- 
pil upon those tasks, either orally or in writing. 
It naturally implies a text-book or something 
equivalent to it. Such a text-book may be the 
Bible itself, portions of which are committed to 
memory and recited in the class. It may be a 
" lesson quarterly" containing questions to be 
studied at home and answered in class. It may 
be some book on biblical history or biblical 
teaching in which the content of the Bible is pre- 
sented in a form for study and recitation. Reci- 



FOR THE SUNDAY SCHOOL 47 

tation may be oral or written, or partly one and 
partly the other. The central aim, intellectually 
speaking", of the recitation method is to induce Purpose of the 

1 ° recitation 

the pupil to study the lesson before coming to 
the class, and the chief use of the lesson-hour, 
again speaking from the intellectual point of 
view, and ignoring, though by no means under- 
valuing, the spiritual and religious aim which is 
dominant in the whole process, is to hear the pu- 
pils' answers, approving those that are right and 
correcting those that are wrong. The work of 
instruction, in the exact sense of the word, is re- 
duced to a minimum by such a method strictly 
applied. The teacher is not so much an instruct- 
or as a quiz-master, though by no means neces- 
sarily in an offensive sense of the term. His 
duty is not so much to teach the pupil as to see 
that the pupil learns what is set him to learn. 
The great advantage of such a method is that, 
given a good text-book and a faithful application 
of the method, the pupil is sure to get some real 
and valuable information, some weekly addition 
to his store of biblical knowledge. Nor is the 
function of the teacher a menial one. To induce 
the pupil to study, so to conduct the lesson-hour 
that he will be interested and ambitious to pre- 
pare his lesson beforehand, and that the recita- 
tion of it will be interesting and illuminating, 
setting the facts in clearer light and impressing 



48 PRINCIPLES AND IDEALS 

them more deeply on his mind — all this is 
work which is much above the menial level, and 
may tax to the utmost the ingenuity and ability 
of even a bright and earnest teacher. 
Danger of The chief dangers of such a method are two. 

bnatfrneaTaf ^n ^ e one s *^ e there is the danger of a rigid, 
the lesson mechanical, unsympathetic way of employing 
it. A Sunday-school teacher — the same danger 
exists in the teaching of arithmetic and geogra- 
phy — who comes to his work with no knowledge 
of the subject beyond that contained in the spe- 
cific lesson assiged in the text-book, who has no 
insight and no outlook, may indeed put the ques- 
tions set down to be answered, or call for a reci- 
tation of the matter assigned to be learned, but 
he can never be a true teacher. No amount of 
strictness in enforcing set tasks can supply the 
place of enthusiastic interest in the subject and 
the pupils. Such interest and enthusiasm are 
especially needful in Sunday-school teaching, 
where the things taught depend so much for their 
effectiveness on the spirit in which they are 
taught, and where even the retention of the pupil 
in the school is often dependent, not on parental 
authority, but on the maintenance of his interest 
in his work. 

But an even greater danger, and one which is 
much oftener realized in experience, is that the 
recitation method shall prove ineffective through 



FOR THE SUNDAY SCHOOL 49 

a lax and unskilful use of it. In multitudes of 
classes in which this method is supposed to be 
employed, the class being supplied with a text- 
book and the text-book itself being constructed Danger of 
for this method and for no other, there is scarcely ^rtfa™ 
a pretense of real study beforehand, or of real teacher 
recitation in the class. The teacher does not ex- 
pect the pupil to prepare the lesson beforehand ; 
and the pupil does not disappoint the teacher's 
expectation. If the lesson calls for written 
answers, the teacher neither has such answers 
read in the class nor examines them afterward. 
If there are questions to be answered orally, these 
are read off to the class in general, not addressed 
to any particular pupil ; they are answered by 
the one or two pupils in the class whose general 
biblical knowledge enables them to make an ex- 
tempore reply, and the exercise closes with a few 
earnest remarks of a religious purpose, the force 
of which is largely lost because they have no root 
or basis in the questioning and answering that 
have preceded, and there has been no preparation 
of the soil of the mind to receive spiritual truth. 
Anything much more profitless than this, more 
calculated to discourage study and to give the 
pupils a distaste for the Sunday school, for the 
study of the Bible, and for the Bible itself, it 
would be hard to devise. 

The fault, however, in both these cases lies 



5 o PRINCIPLES AND IDEALS 

not chiefly in the method, but in the unskilful or 
negligent employment of it. The recitation 
method, either alone or as the chief element of a 
combination of methods, is the best yet devised 
for pupils between the ages of eight and sixteen. 
What is needed is intelligence, enthusiasm, con- 
scientiousness in the employment of it. 
2 - The . 2. The distinctive characteristic of the conversa- 

conversation . . . 

method tion method is that it substitutes extempore ques- 

tioning and discussion for assigned tasks. In- 
stead of finding out what the pupil has already 
learned, the teacher sets him to thinking and 
studying on the spot, leads him by a Socratic 
process of questioning to perceive the facts and 
to see the truth in the lesson as he could not 
have seen it beforehand. The teacher in this 
case teaches, not simply hears the pupil recite. 

In the hands of a skilful teacher this method 
can be made both very attractive and very in- 
structive, even for a class which has not studied 
the lesson at all beforehand. But this very fact 
suggests one of the dangers of such a method. 
Because it can be used without previous study on 
the part of the class, because it is more interest- 
ing than the hearing of recitations, there is a 
constant tendency on the part of the pupils to 
neglect preparation, and on the part of the 
teacher to allow them to do so. And when this 
danger is actually realized, it easily opens the 



FOR THE SUNDAY SCHOOL 51 

door for another, viz., the degeneration from real 
Socratic instruction into mere desultory conver- 
sation. The lack of preparation on the part of Danger of 
the pupil makes impossible the best kind of intodesuitory 
teaching. The teacher is first compelled and t ^ k 
then contented to move on the mere surface of 
the matter, and the method, at first resorted to 
in order to make the exercise more interesting 
than a recitation, ends by being more dull and 
more unprofitable than the most rigid kind of 
reciting. Almost any person of wide observa- 
tion in Sunday-school work must have seen illus- 
trations of precisely these results. 

The way of escape from these dangers of the The 
conversation method is obvious. It ought never ^o^"^ 011 
to be used singly and alone, save for a class of supplemented 
adults who for some reason cannot be induced methods 
to study the lesson beforehand. In such a case 
a skilful teacher can compel his pupils to study 
with him for the hour of the class-meeting, 
though they will not do it beforehand, and may, 
by constant watchfulness, keep the work from 
degenerating into desultory discussion of unim- 
portant or irrelevant matters. But for a class 
made up of pupils capable of being induced 
to study beforehand, the conversation method 
should always be accompanied by some elements 
of the recitation method. The pupil should have 
definite work to do beforehand and should be 



52 PRINCIPLES AND IDEALS 

given an opportunity to show that he has done 
it. This may be accomplished in various ways. 
The simplest way, and perhaps the poorest, is to 
divide the hour, spending a part of it in recita- 
tion, a part in discussion. Another method which 
a skilful teacher may use is in the course of dis- 
cussion to test the pupil's preparation and thus 
stimulate him always to come prepared. Still 
another way, of which much more use might be 
made than is usually the case, is to assign certain 
questions beforehand to be answered in writing. 
In this case it is indispensable that the teacher 
should read these answers, and hand them back 
to the pupil with suggestions and corrections. 
Advantages of These and other means which will suggest 

combining . ° 

methods themselves to ingenious teachers may be em- 

ployed to stimulate and guide the pupil in his 
study outside the class-hour, and so to prevent 
the intellectual and moral degeneration of the 
class-work. 

What has been said sufficiently indicates that 
neither the recitation method nor the conversa- 
tion method is satisfactory alone, but each re- 
quires complementing by the other, and that 
neither method alone, nor both methods together, 
can be successfully employed without common- 
sense, industry, ingenuity, and sympathy on the 
part of the teacher. 

The two methods thus far discussed — the 



FOR THE SUNDAY SCHOOL 53 

recitation method and the conversation method 
— are specially adapted to the classes of the 
secondary division, made up of pupils from eight 
or ten to eighteen years of age. It remains # to 
speak of methods specially adapted to adult 
classes. 

3. In the lecture method, pure and simple, the 3- Theiec- 
teacher demands no preparation on the part of 
his pupils, and in the conduct of the class 
calls for no recitation and asks no questions. 
He instructs by conveying information, with or 
without application of that which is taught to 
personal conduct and current ethical problems. 

In proportion as the element of application is 
prominent the lecture approximates to a sermon. 
Some of the best teaching of adult classes that 
we have in Sunday schools today is simply good 
expository preaching. We cannot have too 
much of it, unless it displaces something still 
better. It is especially adapted to large classes 
in city churches. For its successful employment 
it is necessary that the class should have a room 
by itself, that the teacher should be a well- 
informed student of the Bible, that he should be 
a good speaker and skilful in handling an audi- 
ence. It has the great advantage that it makes 
it possible to employ for the instruction of a 
large number of hearers the best teacher the 
church possesses for this kind of work, instead 



54 PRINCIPLES AND IDEALS 

of dividing the pupils among several teachers of 
inferior ability. It tends to silence those well- 
Its advantages meaning hobby-riders who are likely to be found 
in adult classes [ n almost any adult class conducted on the 
conversational method, and who are continu- 
ally diverting the discussion from its legitimate 
channel to irrelevant and unprofitable themes. 
Given a good teacher, such a class can often draw 
more adults into the Sunday school than any 
number of small classes conducted on a differ- 
ent method could do, both because the teaching 
is better than it would be in the small classes 
and because there is a freedom from any danger 
of being called on to expose one's ignorance. 
There are probably few Sunday schools of any 
size which ought not to have at least one class 
conducted avowedly and invariably on the lecture 
method, provided only a competent teacher can 
be obtained. It is even to be counted among 
the advantages of such a method that, if the 
teacher is not competent, he cannot long hold 
his class. 
Difficulties But the limitations of this method are as obvi- 

in the method qus and real as i ts advantages. It is but little 

calculated to induce the pupil to study. Now 
and then a lecturer may make the Bible so inter- 
esting as to stimulate studious hearers to study 
it for themselves. But most people are as lazy 



FOR THE SUNDAY SCHOOL 55 

as circumstances permit, or too busy to do for 
themselves what others will do for them. And 
expository preaching is only less calculated than 
other kinds of preaching to encourage hearers to 
take their spiritual nourishment from the hands 
of the preacher rather than to search it out for 
themselves. At best the lecture method is but 
a concession to preoccupation, or to ignorance, 
or — alas! that it must be said — to laziness; a 
necessary one, but still a concession. 

To some extent the defects of this method of Possible com- 
teaching may be corrected by combining with it ^e three 
some of the features either of the recitation or methods 
of the conversational method. Thus particular 
themes may be assigned to certain members of 
the class for special study, reports of their read- 
ing being presented before the next lecture. Or 
printed questions may be given out to be an- 
swered in writing, the papers being corrected 
and returned. But these very improvements of 
the lecture method tend, unless managed with 
care and skill, to destroy the advantages of the 
method itself. And the lecture method must re- 
main subject to the great disadvantage that it 
tends but slightly to encourage real study. 

4. But what is the best method for advanced 
classes made up of those who are not beyond all 
hope of becoming real students of the Bible ? 
The teaching of the Bible in academies and col- 



nar method 



56 PRINCIPLES AND IDEALS 

leges is producing — we hope the improvement in 
the pedagogical methods of the Sunday school is 
going to produce — a class of real Bible students 
4. The semi- in our churches. These people will want to con- 
tinue their study of the Bible beyond the age of 
youth, but they will want it to be real study; not 
mere talk, however interesting. For this class, 
already existing in our churches, and destined, 
we hope, constantly to increase, we are persuaded 
that there is needed a method different from any 
that we have thus far described. For lack of a 
better title we shall call it, using a German name, 
the seminar method. A seminar is a group of 
students pursuing investigative study under lead- 
ership. The pupil has tasks assigned, as in the 
recitation method, but the task is one, not of 
memorizing, but of investigation ; not of mere 
acquisition, but of discovery. If, for example, 
the subject of study is the religious ideas of the 
prophet Isaiah, the student is neither set to learn 
these ideas from a text-book, in which someone 
has formulated them for him, nor gently led to 
perceive them through a conversational discus- 
sion of the book of Isaiah, nor informed concern- 
ing them in a lecture ; but is sent direct to the 
prophecies of Isaiah, with instruction to discover 
and report to the class what he finds to be the 
ideas of the prophet on this or that theme which 
is specially assigned to him. The same method 



FOR THE SUNDAY SCHOOL 57 

is applicable to a multitude of similar subjects, 
such as the interpretation of the Sermon on the 
Mount, the ethical teachings of Jesus, the the- 
ology of Paul. Such a method, sufficiently sim- The method 
plified and applied to carefully selected subjects, JI^Jj apte 
is practicable even with pupils of the high-school 
or college age. But it is evident that its chief 
field is among somewhat mature pupils, and espe- 
cially among those who are intellectually mature. 
Indeed, there is no class to whom it would be 
less applicable than to adults of untrained mind. 
It might be so simplified that it could be used 
with children ; its use with people who have lost 
the flexibility of the youthful mind without gain- 
ing the strength of a trained mind would be quite 
impossible. Even if they were not utterly baf- 
fled by the impossibility of assuming the attitude 
of mind required for investigation they would be 
almost certain to study, not for the purpose of 
discovering truths and facts, but for that of 
establishing opinions already accepted or of dis- 
proving those already rejected. 

It is equally evident that such a method de- 
mands thoroughly competent and trained teach- 
ers. Young people who have never themselves 
been taught by anything but a text-book or lec- 
ture method are incompetent to become the lead- 
ers of classes pursuing investigative work. There 
are many Sunday schools in which work of this 



5 8 PRINCIPLES AND IDEALS 

kind cannot be done, because they have abso- 
lutely no teacher capable of conducting it ; per- 
haps there are very few schools in which it can 
The need of be done. The same statement applies, only less 
teTchers sweepingly, to the lecture method. Even the 

pastor is in many cases incapable, not from lack 
of time only, but from lack of training, of doing 
either of these kinds of work well. That this is 
so simply emphasizes the fact that our Sunday 
schools are still a long distance from their goal, 
and that there is pressing need of schools — we 
do not mean now Sunday schools, but colleges or 
seminaries — in which men and women shall be 
trained for this higher order of teaching. But in 
some of our churches there are men and women 
possessing the requisite scholarship and the requi- 
site skill in teaching either to conduct a lecture- 
class or to lead an investigative class. Such men 
and women ought to be used, both for the gen- 
eral instruction of the church and the education 
of those who are themselves to be teachers. 

Would it not be a profitable exercise for every 
Sunday-school teacher to scrutinize his own 
method of teaching, inquiring of what type, or 
what mixture of types, it is, and whether it is the 
one that is best adapted to the class and the sub- 
ject he is teaching, and whether he is employing 
it so as to avoid its dangers and to gain its ad- 
vantages ? Might it not be a useful exercise for 



FOR THE SUNDAY SCHOOL 59 

the superintendent to inquire what methods of 
teaching are in use in his school, whether the A suggestion 

11 .to superintend- 

methods employed are the best for the classes in ents 
which they are used, whether some new methods 
might not be employed, and whether the intro- 
duction of these methods might not bring into 
the school some persons who are not now drawn 
by the methods in use ? Have you a lecture-class 
in your school ? Is the teacher a good lecturer? 
Have you an investigative class? Have you 
the material to make one and a teacher to con- 
duct it ? 



CHAPTER VI. 



I. The study 
of scriptural 
geography 



Allegorical 
geography 



METHOD AS DETERMINED BY THE SUBJECT 
OF STUDY. 

Whatever particular form of teaching one may 
choose as adapted to the character of one's class 
and one's own ability, there will always remain 
necessary a certain adaptation of method to the 
subject taught. Thus there will arise the query 
as to how best to teach the chief elements of 
biblical study, geography, history, prophecy, 
poetry, and epistle. 

I . The teaching of biblical geography, — So over- 
laid have all scriptural matters become with 
various strata of theology and religious com- 
ment that it is exceedingly difficult for most read- 
ers of the Bible to set matters in their actual 
connections. Especially true is it that few per- 
sons are in the habit of studying the Bible with 
any thought of its geographical relations. 

The cause is evident. In a way that finds 
almost no parallel except the Sacred Moun- 
tain of the Japanese, the physical characteristics 
of Palestine have worked their way into the 
vocabulary of Christian experience. We should 
expect that the recollection of the role which 
their rivers and their mountains and valleys had 

60 



FOR THE SUNDAY SCHOOL 61 

played in their history would have made them in 
the eyes of the Hebrew poets the veritable rep- 
resentative and symbol of the experiences them- 
selves. And since all of these experiences were 
traced back directly to Jehovah, it would be 
easy to see how, when the mountains and the 
hills and the valleys were substituted for the 
experiences, they might at the same time come 
to stand for Jehovah's dealings with his people. 
Yet, singularly enough, this is by no means This a 
as common in the Old Testament itself as in j^ en e menon 
Christian literature. The people who lived by 
the side of the Jordan saw in it a very real 
boundary between very real fields. The religious 
poet of today, forgetting the fact that the Jordan 
is a stream with a traceable bed and a geologi- 
cal history, thinks of it only as a symbol of that 
river of death through which one must pass 
to reach a heavenly Promised Land. The same 
thing is true of Zion. By a sort of allegorizing 
process, that oriental town, whose splendors at 
their best must have been small compared with 
those of many a modern city, but which was the 
stronghold of Jehovah's people, has come to 
mean the heaven above and all that is religious 
here on earth ; while the desert has become sin ; 
the Hivites, the Perrizites, and the Jebusites, 
temptations which the believer is to overcome ; 
and Canaan, eternal salvation. 



62 



PRINCIPLES AND IDEALS 



Dangers in 

such 

allegorizing 



Political 
geography 
and the New 
Testament 



Whatever one may say in justification of this 
method of treating the Scriptures, it is hardly 
necessary to call attention to the danger to which 
it is exposed because of the teacher's intellectual 
laziness. It cannot be too often emphasized that 
the Bible is not only a history of events, but the 
record of a nation's interpretation of God's deal- 
ings with it. But history walks upon the earth, 
not upon allegory, and if one would understand 
the history of the Israelites one must know 
the land in which the Israelites lived. The 
battles of Deborah and Gideon would have 
been very different had they been fought in 
Judea, and it would have been impossible for 
the events of David's early life to have occurred 
even on the mountains of Gilboa. The kingdom 
of Judah would have fallen as soon as the king- 
dom of Israel, if Jerusalem had been a second 
Samaria, and Hellenism might have stamped out 
the Law, if the mountains of the land had been 
without caves. 

How, too, is it possible for one to appreciate 
fully the diversities in the life of Jesus unless it 
be remembered that the several portions of his 
ministry were spent in different parts of the land ? 
Who fully understands the method of Jesus' work 
in Galilee who cannot approximately locate the 
cities of the lake and their relations with the sur- 
rounding country ? Indeed, so closely is his life 



FOR THE SUNDAY SCHOOL 63 

united with the political history of Palestine that 
one cannot fully understand his birth, boyhood, 
success, retreat, arrest, and trial without knowing 
the boundaries and the political conditions of 
Judea and Galilee. In a certain sense the same 
is true of the brief career, the arrest, and the 
death of John the Baptist. In the case of Paul 
the assistance given by good geographical infor- 
mation is even more marked. Paul was a wan- 
derer whose methods, and to some extent whose 
preaching, took on the color of the various civili- 
zations, and even cities, in which he labored. To 
make his letter to the Ephesians fit the needs of 
the Galatians would be as impossible as to iden- 
tify the customs of Antioch in Pisidia with the 
customs of Ephesus. To say nothing of the 
apologetic value of the new light thrown upon 
the accuracy of Luke, it is no small exegetical 
help that has already been derived from the dis- 
cussion of the purely geographical question as to 
the location of the Galatian churches and the 
extent of Galatia as a province of the Roman 
empire. 

It is imperative that the teacher accustom his Further value 
class to the use of maps. Every place mentioned ° f y^cd Y 
in the lesson should be carefully located. If geography 
there are journeys or battles to be considered, 
have the pupils notice every feature likely to ex- 
plain them. Let the distances be estimated and 



64 PRINCIPLES AND IDEALS 

then compared with those with which the pupil 
is familiar. As far as possible have the pupil 
draw his own map, indicating on it such places 
as his study may have brought to his attention. 
Help him to connect historical events with locali- 
ties, and as far as possible through photographs 
see that he gets a correct idea of what such 
places resemble. For the younger pupils it will 
be found a good expedient to devote several les- 
sons to an imaginary journey to Palestine. Noth- 
ing will better serve to stimulate their interest in 
the land or to help them realize its character- 
istics. 
Physical In fact the teaching of the geography of 

geography a . , , 

factor in Palestine may be made full of suggestions as 

Israel's to ^ Q history and development of Israel. With 

history m J l 

the aid of a raised map, or by having one's 
pupils construct a model from sand, the form and 
shape of the little land may be easily seen. 
Immediately its hills and gorges, its interla- 
cing watersheds, its few opportunities for roads 
to bind Judea with Galilee, will give one a new 
appreciation of the work of both prophet and 
priest. It will appear that the persistence and 
the development of the belief in Jehovah as one 
ethical and supreme God were in direct opposi- 
tion to the forces which nature set at work in 
a land where every hill was an invitation to 
polytheism. And yet Israel, through the dis- 



FOR THE SUNDAY SCHOOL 65 

cipline of prophet and God, became the founder 
of the world's great monotheism. So, too, with 
a little effort the teacher can show his class how 
the changing seasons, the ever-returning west 
wind, the rains and droughts, the stony ground 
that is yet so fertile, the springs and water- 
courses, while all alike serving admirably the 
poet and preacher, had a direct influence in 
determining the character of the Jew himself. 
And if of the Jew, then of Christianity. 

2. The teaching of biblical history. — Speaking 2. History 
generally, narrative material, in so far as it is not biography 
fiction, may be grouped into two great classes 
— biography and history. The first concerns 
itself with the doings of some person as a mere 
individual ; the second deals with the life of a 
social group like a city or nation. Very fre- 
quently, however, it is difficult to draw this line 
with any precision. Individuals get their sig- 
nificance chiefly from their connection with some 
social group, and nations are composed of and are 
led by individuals. Sometimes, indeed, so inti- 
mately was a man's life joined with the events of 
his time that his biography is the history of his 
epoch, and to write the one is to write the other. 
Yet, even in such cases, biography differs from 
history. It is more interested in the individual 
as such, and will narrate at length events which, 
though of no appreciable social or political influ- 



66 PRINCIPLES AND IDEALS 

ence, are of very great interest and importance 
as indicative of the person's characteristics. 
The In the Bible, except in the case of the gos- 

biographical % . . . , 

history of pels, it is all but impossible to make the distinc- 
tly Bible t j Qn between the two sets of narratives. On the 
one hand, so fixed were the eyes of writers upon 
the development of Israel, rather than of indi- 
viduals, that, with the exception of Jesus, biog- 
raphy as such is all but lacking. Men's lives 
and deeds are described almost invariably be- 
cause they had some influence upon, or at 
least connection with, the history of a nation or 
of a church. On the other hand, history is 
always traced as it was made by heroes or un- 
made by sinners. Abraham, Jacob, Moses, David, 
Ahab, Elijah, Nehemiah, Jesus, Paul — to tell the 
story of these lives is to write the history of bib- 
lical times. 
Stories for In this biographical-historical character of the 

narrative portion of the Bible lies a great peda- 
gogical advantage. By exploiting it a teacher 
may adapt his instruction to the maturity or im- 
maturity of the pupils with whom he may be called 
to deal. The teacher of very young pupils will 
find in the Old Testament an abundance of ma- 
terial which he may use as stories. Little chil- 
dren require hardly any other form of lesson ma- 
terial. With them the effort should be to make 
such stories of men and women as vivid as pos- 



FOR THE SUNDAY SCHOOL 67 

sible, in total disregard of everything except the 
dramatic quality. Such stories will carry their 
own moral lessons quite as effectively as the 
most approved nursery tales. 

.With pupils of the public-school age, approxi- Biographical 

, . .,, , , . stories for 

mately from seven to thirteen, it will be advis- boys and girls 
able to dwell chiefly upon the biographical rather 
than the historical element in the biblical narra- 
tive. Let the attention be centered upon the 
lives of the heroes of Scripture. If these are 
taught in the spirit of the biblical writers them- 
selves, nothing is more instructive. The teacher 
not only has material that will readily appeal to 
his young pupils, but he has its religious and 
moral values already expressed. Virtues and 
their counterparts are never so distinct in the 
minds of children as when seen in the actual 
lives of men and women. 

The real task for the teacher in this connec- Biographical 
tion, however, comes when he has to deal with a doksLnts 
the boys and girls of high-school age. In their 
case the newly awakened critical judgment, the 
new sense of social relations, the irresistible im- 
pulse to generalize — in a word, the entire new 
world of adolescence — make demands that are 
not to be met by mere stories or mere biogra- 
phy. They not only require facts, they wish to 
see the relation and the significance of facts. 
Quite as much, also, do they need to be taught 



68 PRINCIPLES AND IDEALS 

to grasp the real meaning of biblical narratives, 
to distinguish between a folk-tale of a bygone 
age and sober history, to form opinions as to the 
historical value of the Bible that will be a source 
of confidence rather than of uncertainty as they 
reach maturity. Yet with these pupils, as with 
the others, the teacher can well afford to ap- 
proach the biblical narratives from the point of 
view of their authors. If they are historical, 
they are also biographical. 
Suggestions From this fact comes the first suggestion for 

ror tG3.ciicrs * 

(a) Make ' teachers of these and even more advanced 
heroes central c i asses • J e t the study of biblical narratives be 
biographical. That it to say, the individual 
should be made the center of interest, and the 
affairs of Israel or the early church should be 
grouped about leading and significant men. How 
much help lies in such a method must be at once 
evident. Boys and girls even of the high-school 
age have not the interest in social forces and 
laws which their elders possess. They want he- 
roes, not philosophy. And heroes the Bible 
gives in profusion. The deeds of Gideon and 
David, of Jesus and Paul, if only they are taught 
without undue moralizing or exhortation, can 
never fail to interest the young. In their daily 
lessons in their schools they learn to admire the 
great men of their own and other lands, but 
where in all history are there more dramatic, 



their times 



FOR THE SUNDAY SCHOOL 69 

more human, more inspiring characters than one 
finds described with marvelous literary skill in the 
Bible ? There are few teachers who will not tes- 
tify to the relief with which they welcome lessons 
dealing with the men of the Scriptures, and to 
the unaccustomed zest with which a restless class 
of boys or a politely indifferent class of girls lis- 
tens to and even studies stories like those of 
Joseph and Ruth. 

A second suggestion also comes from the bib- (*) Let 
lical material : Study these biographies as illus- illustrate 
trating or embodying the important social char- 
acteristics of a period. This is precisely why 
these persons appear on the pages of the Bible ; 
so to use them is but to follow the plan of the 
biblical writer. To show the truth of this it is 
not necessary to recall those long genealogical 
chapters of Genesis where tribes appear in the 
guise of individuals: any Old Testament charac- 
ter may serve as example. How can one study 
the different periods of David's life without see- 
ing that each is the result of some condition of 
the Hebrew people ? So, too, in the case of Paul^ 
how can one trace his career without seeing 
clearly the changing situations in apostolic Chris- 
tianity ? If one wishes to help a class of boys 
and girls to realize how all history is a record 
of the struggle of opposing tendencies and 
ideals how better can it be done than by putting 



70 PRINCIPLES AND IDEALS 

over against each other the lives of Elijah and 
Ahab? Is not the teacher in the public school 
doing precisely the same when he helps his pu- 
pils understand the history of England by inter- 
esting them in English sovereigns? 
The value of To make such comparisons real, the teacher 

arc aeoogy s hould use the fascinating results of archaeology. 
The libraries of Babylon, the correspondence of 
Tell Amarna, the colonnades of the Decapolis, 
the temples of innumerable cities, the tombs of 
Egypt, the long-buried, superimposed cities of 
Palestine and Asia Minor, are treasure-houses 
for almost any period of biblical history one may 
study ; and now that they are all so readily avail- 
able through literature and photographs, to neg- 
lect them is as inexcusable as it is impolitic. 

Indeed, the well-trained teacher may even 
venture farther with an exceptionally bright class. 
The slow development of nomadic clans into a 
nation can be no better illustrated by recourse 
to the German tribes as they overran Gaul and 
Italy than to the Hebrew tribes as they overran 
Palestine and slowly felt their way through the 
dark ages of the Judges into the short-lived 
national unity under David and Solomon. In 
the case of each people the different political or 
economic stages are to be studied through the 
adventures of some representative man or woman. 
Once let the ambitious Sunday-school teacher 



FOR THE SUNDAY SCHOOL 71 

experiment with this method of teaching biblical 
history, and he will be surprised at the results 
both in his class and in himself. 

And this suggests a third direction : As far (c) Compare 
as possible teach biblical history comparatively. w jth th<T 
That is, endeavor to find parallels between it and history studied 

1 in schools 

the history the members of one's class may be 
studying in the high school. So well arranged 
have the curricula of most such schools become 
that it is seldom that their pupils are not 
concerned with Rome or Greece, England or 
America. As has already been implied, parallels 
between the Hebrew history and that of other 
nations are always easy to discover, and to dis- 
cuss them, to bring bright pupils to argue over 
them, is one of the easiest and most fruitful of 
methods. Ask, for instance, a class whose mem- 
bers are deep in Roman history to compare the 
story of Romulus and the founding of Rome 
with the Genesis account of Abraham and the 
founding of the Hebrew nation. A little pre- 
paratory analysis of the two matters on the part 
of the teacher will lead to a series of questions 
that will not only test the pupils' knowledge of 
the facts involved, but will stimulate his judg- 
ment and imagination, and thus become of gen- 
uine pedagogical value. Similarly, pupils who 
during the week are studying American history 
may be led to compare the French and Indian 



72 PRINCIPLES AND IDEALS 

Wars with the struggle of the Israelites with 
the Philistines, and the Revolution with the revolt 
of Rhehoboam. For more advanced pupils a 
most illuminating comparison is that of thegrowth 
of the messianic idea with that of the doctrine 
of rights in France during the eighteenth century. 
Other comparisons will readily suggest themselves 
to any teacher who has even a moderate amount 
of historical insight and pedagogical aptitude. 
(d) show that a fourth suggestion is this: Show how the 

literature ' 

springs from spirit of an age always expresses itself in the 
condhions literature of the age. Here again the compara- 
tive method may be used to advantage with 
classes studying English literature in the public 
schools. The teacher should endeavor to appre- 
ciate and get his pupils to appreciate the fact 
that war and bloodshed no more constitute the 
entirety of Hebrew than of English history, and 
that, in one as in the other, literature is but one 
form taken by the spirit that lay back of and in 
no small way accounted for the course of outer 
events. It is from this point, indeed, that one 
may well teach the pupil to approach the Bible 
itself; for it is, so to speak, the literary residu- 
um of the best spirit of the Hebrew people. 
To see it thus through the medium of the differ- 
ent periods in which it was written is not only to 
move toward a better understanding of its teach- 
ing ; it is also to come to an appreciation of its 



history 



FOR THE SUNDAY SCHOOL 73 

real character as the record and the product of a 
progressive revelation of the divine will through 
human life. And this, as has already been 
urged, is an indispensable prerequisite of all 
proper biblical teaching. 

A fifth suggestion applies especially to the ( e ) Teach 
more advanced classes, and can be fully adopted consciousness 
only with pupils who have pursued their biblical the entl ^ e 

J r r r sweep or 

study according to an intelligently constructed biblical 
curriculum, or who have been otherwise excep- 
tionally well trained. Under such exceptional 
circumstances, however, it is of the highest im- 
portance to trace the onward movement and 
broad sweep of events in the light of which the 
larger connections and larger meanings of bibli- 
cal history may be discerned. The deepest sig- 
nificance of Israel's history is perceived only 
when in the century-long sweep of that history one 
discerns the outlines of that educational process 
by which the people rose to those nobler ideals of 
God and the higher standard of morality which 
made them unique among the nations. The in- 
tense career of Jesus — so brief as compared with 
the centuries of Israelitish history, so significant 
as giving to that history its deepest significance — 
is adequately understood only as it is seen in its 
entirety. The Apostolic Age loses most of its 
value for us when we take a mere atomistic view 
of its successive events. And he has still to 



74 PRINCIPLES AND IDEALS 

reach the highest achievement of the historical 
study of the Bible who has not seen in all these — 
the history of Israel, the life of the Christ, the 
birth and infancy of the Christian community — 
in one broad view, a vision of the gradual self- 
revelation of God to men and of the divine educa- 
tion of men to live according to divine ideals. Ob- 
viously this suggestion cannot be applied to the 
teaching of individual lessons. Not less surely 
will he fail really to adopt it who with dim and 
hazy ideas of the biblical history substitutes 
eloquence for solid instruction. But the teach- 
ing of biblical history can never be wholly 
what it should be, even for the Sunday school, 
till by aid of a properly constructed curriculum 
and adequate text-books it can culminate in some 
such broad view as we have endeavored to de- 
scribe. Meantime the teacher who can get some- 
thing of this view for himself may now and then 
give to his pupils also an inspiring and uplifting 
glimpse of it. 
3. The 3. The teaching of prophecy. — Growing directly 

prophecy out °f this method of teaching the history of the 
Bible is that of teaching the prophecies. They 
too must be approached from the historical side. 
Men like Isaiah and Jeremiah were not interested 
in events that were to happen thousands of years 
after their death ; they were foretelling to men of 
their own time the certain outcome of national 



FOR THE SUNDAY SCHOOL 75 

sins and virtues, of certain punishments and Prophecy 
rewards, of Jehovah's love and justice. To i n history 
disassociate their work from the political situa- 
tions in which they lived is utterly to misunder- 
stand them. Accordingly, if one is to teach the 
prophecies, two fundamental rules must be ob- 
served. 

In the first place, the teacher must realize, Therefore, 
and help his pupils to realize, as distinctly as the historical 
possible, the historical circumstances in which a circumstances 

r ' from which 

prophet spoke. Especially must the interna- a prophecy 
tional relations of Israel with its neighbors be sprang 
emphasized, particularly with Assyria and Egypt. 
The prophets spoke less to individuals than to 
nations, and many of their addresses are unin- 
telligible except as this is recognized by the in- 
terpreter. To present this one fact is likely to 
arouse interest, and this may be deepened by 
leading the pupils to attempt a comparison of 
these Hebrew preachers with their modern repre- 
sentatives, ministers, social reformers, and politi- 
cal leaders. A careful balancing of similarities 
and differences between the ancient world and 
the modern, the biblical prophet and the modern 
preacher, will go far to assist one's pupils to 
understand the function and dignity of both. 
Possibly there may come also a new appreciation 
of the difficulties under which religious teachers 
of all ages have been forced to labor. 



76 PRINCIPLES AND IDEALS 

(b) show the In the second place, the pupils should be 

^prophets taught to see how far in advance of the times in 
to their times w hich he lived were the words of the prophet. 
Nor will this be difficult when once he has real- 
ized the historical element in prophecy. The 
unfaithfulness of Israel to Jehovah, the national 
degeneracy, the incursion of heathen customs 
and ideals, the low morality of king and people 
as it appears in the prophetic denunciation and 
description — these and other elements which a 
truly historical study will reveal combine to em- 
phasize the philosophy of suffering, the pictures 
of a forgiving God, the hope of a brighter day, 
and the certainty of a deliverer with which 
the prophecies abound. As this aspect of the 
prophet's work grows distinct, it gains a new sig- 
nificance. It ceases to be enigmatic foretell- 
ing and becomes full of permanent moral teach- 
ing. Its forecast of the future, so different 
from the career of historic Israel, carries one's 
mind over to some better lesson than mechanical 
"fulfilment" and shows with new distinctness 
how the life of Jesus meets prophetic ideals 
otherwise unsatisfied. Thus the actual work and 
significance of the prophet are understood, and 
his words are made modern by first being seen 
to be ancient. If, with advanced classes, this 
study be carried one step farther, and the effect 
of the prophetic impulse be traced in the legis- 



FOR THE SUNDAY SCHOOL 77 

lation of the later codes and the new kingdom 
that sprang up after the Return, the teacher will 
have the richest sort of material for illustrating 
the possibility of religion's influencing legislation 
and national ideals through the faith and self- 
sacrificing morality of individuals. 

4. The teaching of biblical poetry. — Naturally 4- The 

1 i-i -11 1 1 • 1 1 1 1 teaching of 

the emphasis here will be laid less upon broad biblical poetry 
historical situations — although, whenever discov- 
erable, they are by no means to be disregarded — 
than upon purely literary characteristics. Above 
all is it necessary to impress upon the pupil the 
fact that the poetry of the Bible, just as truly 
as that of any literature, has a real poetical 
form. In our English translations this form Poetical form 
is too frequently obscured, but it is none the less 
present, and when once observed is not likely 
again to be overlooked. The absence of rhyme 
and — at least in the English version — rhythm 
cannot prevent the pupil's being shown the paral- 
lelism of thought, the balancing of opposing 
conceptions, the oftentimes elaborate structure of 
the Psalms, or the balanced sentences of the 
Proverbs and other literature dealing with wis- 
dom. Nor is it difficult to induce a class to see 
that all Hebrew literature is full of imagery often 
bold and always beautiful ; and when once this 
point of vantage is gained, the teaching of the 
poetical portions of the Bible is made both easy 
and fascinating. 



78 PRINCIPLES AND IDEALS 

Restore It follows that the teacher will first of all set 

his class at restoring the lost literary form. This 
may be done in the way of preparing the lesson, 
or even in the class. When this has been done, 
he will ask for interpretations of the literary 
figures in which the thought is cast. If possible, 
he will endeavor to point out the circumstances 
under which the psalm was written or used. If it 
is a bit of wisdom, and especially if it is a saying 
of Jesus — for much of his teaching is in poetic 
form in the Hebrew sense — he will have his class 
formulate in literal terms the teaching they have 
discovered under the poetic form. 

The study of The importance of this method will appear in 

apocalypses 

strong light, should the teacher be forced to in- 
troduce his class into any of the apocalyptic por- 
tions of the Bible. Here it is, if possible, even 
more imperative than in the case of the Psalms, 
Proverbs, and Parables for class and teacher to 
realize that they are dealing with a literary form 
closely allied to poetry. In apocalyptic compo- 
sition practically nothing is intended to be inter- 
preted literally. The various creatures are sym- 
bols, the action is symbolical, places and persons 
are symbolical. To interpret such material 
requires something more than exegetical inge- 
nuitv ; one must know the literary form itself, its 
method of teaching, the historical situation it 
seeks to portray, and the sort of deliverance it 



FOR THE SUNDAY SCHOOL 



79 



promises. Altogether, the task is too great to lay 
upon the teacher of an average class of boys and 
girls. Yet if it is so laid, one rule may be re- 
garded as inviolable : apocalyptic like all figura- 
tive material is not interpreted as long as any 
vestige of the original symbolizing descriptions 
is left. To interpret figurative teaching involves 
the utter destruction of the figures. 

Yet it would be a grievous mistake if the study the 
teacher should look at biblical poetry simply ^g lt: ° t 
from the point of view of literary form. Nothing 
could be more deadening. Poetry above all 
forms of literature is expressive of life. To under- 
stand it one must look out on life with its author, 
one must sympathize with his feelings, one must 
look through his words into his heart and experi- 
ence. The student of biblical poetry needs this 
spiritual sympathy. If ever a literature was not 
dilettante it is the Hebrew. Even Lamenta- 
tions, despite its highly conventionalized form, 
rings true. The Hebrew psalm is as sincere as it 
is elevated. The teacher, accordingly, must seek 
to recover the biographical history, the "psy- 
chological moment " of the poetry he is bringing 
to his class. Generally this may be found in the 
poetry itself; sometimes in a definite historical 
circumstance. But always must the teacher en- 
deavor to make his class realize the state of heart 
from which the poem sprang. There, if any- 



80 PRINCIPLES AND IDEALS 

where, will be the true entrance to its teaching 
and the point of contact between the man of the 
past and the boy or girl of the present. 
5- T . he 5. The teaching of epistles. — We have already 

epistles made a number of suggestions which may show 

how a teacher can study this element of the 
Bible, and it is necessary now only to call atten- 
tion to the fact that here again he must recog- 
nize the need of leading his class to appreciate 
the situation from which the New Testament 
epistles sprang as actual letters from one person 
to another person or to a group of persons. In 
several cases, of course, it is all but impossible to 
reach specific and final conclusions in such mat- 
ters, but the epistles of which this is true may 
well be reserved for very advanced classes. In 
the case of the Pauline literature it is possible 
to construct the historical situation with fulness 
and accuracy and, as has already been indicated, 
often from a study of the epistle itself. As a 
general principle of study, these epistles ought 
to be treated in connection with the life of Paul, 
but, as this is very often impracticable, it will be 
the duty of the teacher to show what material in 
Acts supplements the testimony of the letter 
itself to its occasion and purpose, and throws 
especial light on the epistle or portion of an epistle 
under consideration. At all costs the pupil should 
be made to see that the epistles, as far as the pur- 



FOR THE SUNDAY SCHOOL 81 

pose of their authors was concerned, were writ- The rear 

r . , . , , purpose of 

ten, not to serve as systems of theological teach- t h e epistles 
ing for endless ages, but to meet certain definite 
needs of the persons to whom they were sent, 
and that the whole question of their relation to 
modern life must be answered through a recog- 
nition of their purpose. It is a great step toward 
the proper use of the New Testament for practi- 
cal religious purposes when one comes to realize 
that many of the apostolic directions for Christian 
conduct were adapted primarily and exclusively 
to Christians living in Grseco-Roman cities nearly 
two thousand years ago. But it is idle to hope 
to appreciate accurately this element in the apos- 
tolic literature until one appreciates the actual 
historical environment in which it arose. 



To some persons it may seem that this a possible 
methodical study of the Scriptures will work i s J ^is° n 



method 
religiously 



against the fundamentally religious purpose of 
the Sunday school. For such apprehensions we effective? 
have the deepest sympathy. It would be a most 
disastrous change if the Sunday school should 
become a mere school of archaeology or of peda- 
gogical method. To those who feel these appre- 
hensions it is to be answered, in the first place, 
that the methods of teaching which we have been 
describing in this chapter are not guaranteed in 
and of themselves to make the teacher in the 



82 PRINCIPLES AND IDEALS 

fullest sense successful. These methods pertain 
to the intellectual side of his work. But the 
teacher must be something more than intellectual- 
ly acute, or in a narrow sense pedagogically skil- 
ful. It would be quite possible to teach the 
Bible with great acuteness and with a high degree 
of skill of a certain sort without making it reli- 
giously effective. It is for this reason that we 
speak at length in another chapter of the ways in 
which a teacher can render his work religiously 
effective. 
The Sunday g^ dismissing that side of the matter for the 

school must 

be educational moment, it is also to be said, as we have main- 
tained at the outset, that the Sunday school, as an 
educational institution controlled by a distinctly 
religious purpose, must and will achieve its high- 
est religious purpose by being true to its educa- 
tional as well as to its religious ideals. You 
cannot make the Sunday school more effective 
religiously by leaving it inefficient educationally. 
The educational and religious phases of the school 
are not rivals, but respectively means and end. 
To strengthen the means is, other things being 
equal, to promote the end. Granting that the 
methods which we have been advocating are good 
methods pedagogically, the question reduces 
itself to this : Will better instruction prove less 
effective religiously than poor instruction? 

Now, on this question we are not forced to 



FOR THE SUNDAY SCHOOL 83 

rely wholly on a priori consideration. We have Experience 

1 , r • i_ • 1 i_ has shown 

some data of experience on which to base an the rellgious 
opinion. There are in every Sunday school efficiency 
teachers who not only exert a strong personal teaching 
influence over their pupils, but who conscientious- 
ly study their lessons and induce the members of 
their classes to do the same. They are interested 
in the great truths of revelation, but they are also 
interested in the Bible as a channel of such reve- 
lation. Their interest begets interest, and their 
classes acquire biblical knowledge as well as 
religious inspiration. Would any person acquaint- 
ed with the work of such teachers question that 
its results are more permanent than any other 
sort of teaching? Or affirm that the pupils thus 
instructed are with any more difficulty brought to 
a decision to lead religious lives, or are any more 
prone to indifference? 

And then, too, there is the steadily increasing 
number of Sunday schools in which a serious 
effort is being made to bring biblical instruction 
to the level, pedagogically speaking, of the day 
school — schools that grade, examine, actually 
teach their pupils. If the testimony that reaches 
us from such schools means anything, it is that 
throughout the entire body of pupils there is a 
deepening religious interest as well as a more 
thorough mastering of the Bible as a whole rather 
than of some particular text. 



8 4 



PRINCIPLES AND IDEALS 



Are we 
afraid that 
the Bible is 
religiously 
ineffective ? 



Why fear to 
use good 
methods ? 



Does not a doubt of the advisability of better 
study and teaching of the Bible in reality approach 
a suspicion of the power of truth ? May it not 
be that, if young minds were less entertained, 
less exhorted, less filled with stories, more in- 
structed in the contents and meaning of the Bible, 
they would be more ready to appreciate the pro- 
gressive revelation whose record is so clear in the 
Scriptures? We have no quarrel with the insti- 
tutionalizing of the Sunday school ; on the con- 
trary, every attempt to awaken esprit de corps 
appears to us most advisable. But all this must 
subserve instruction. It should never be made 
an end in itself. Unless one has a supreme con- 
fidence in the power of divine truth to accomplish 
its mission, it is idle to attempt to teach. But if 
one has such confidence, and if teaching is really 
worth while, why not teach in the right way, and 
why not organize a school in ways which experi- 
ence has shown makes teaching the more effect- 
ive ? 

If the Bible is what we all believe it to be, 
there can be no danger in attempting to induce 
young minds actually to study its truths. If 
pedagogy is worth anything, it is uneconomical 
not to employ its conclusions and methods in 
such instruction. If religious truth has any power, 
there is no need to fear lest, if it be properly 
taught and properly studied, it will lose any of 



FOR THE SUNDAY SCHOOL 85 

its capacity to bring boys and girls to a decision 
to stand for it and the God who gave it. 

Why be apprehensive lest a good tree should 
bring forth bad fruit ? 



CHAPTER VII. 

HOW TO INDUCE A PUPIL TO STUDY. 
The problem Next to that of his own preparation, perhaps as 
Sunday-school difficult a problem as any that confronts the am- 
pupiis to study bitious teacher in the Sunday school is that of 
inducing his class to study the lesson out of 
school. And by study such a teacher means 
something more than the memorizing of verses 
of the Bible, or the acquiring of such a superficial 
knowledge of the general scope of biblical teach- 
ing as will enable the pupil to answer extempo- 
raneously general questions as to morals and duty. 
Far less does a genuine teacher consider his 
work in a class successful when he has succeeded 
in keeping members within the bounds of reason- 
able order during a half-hour. One great need 
of Sunday schools today is such a method as will 
induce the pupils to apply themselves to the 
preparation of the lesson during the week — to 
work as faithfully over Josiah as they work over 
Washington. 
Elements of 4 The number of difficulties which here confront 
Sunday-Lhooi t ' ie teacher of a class of half-grown boys or girls 
classes is large. On the one side are the pupils, full of 

life, not especially appreciative of the importance 

86 



FOR THE SUNDAY SCHOOL 87 

of religious instruction, with their thoughts filled 
with the events of the past week, uneasy, criti- 
cal, and with minds most contradictorily acute and 
indifferent. On the other hand is the teacher, 
possessed of little or no authority, most prob- 
ably with no special training for the task of 
teaching, not possessed, generally, of any very 
distinct idea as to what the office of teacher im- 
plies, but determined to maintain a reasonable 
amount of order, and, if possible, bring each 
member of the class to Christ. A third element 
is that of the lesson itself. Too often it is alto- 
gether unfitted for teaching purposes. Either 
the matter is too abstract, or it is too simple. An 
anecdote from the Old Testament, a few verses 
of a prophecy or of an epistle, taken out from 
its context and used as a basis of moral exhor- 
tation, are poor material from which to derive 
interest or wisdom. 

These three elements in combination go far to ignorance of 
account for the lamentable fact that, notwith- the Blble 
standing years of instruction in a Sunday school, 
the rank and file of Christians, even of intelligent 
Christians, have no knowledge of the Bible wor- 
thy of the name, but in its place a mixture of 
confused information, ethical platitudes, good 
resolutions, and dense ignorance as to the actual 
teaching of prophets, apostles, and Christ. ^ 

But without just now discussing the quality of 



88 PRINCIPLES AND IDEALS 

teachers or the proper curriculum, let us assume 
that each is satisfactory; there is still left the 
very important question how actually to teach 
a class in the Sunday school itself. 

As regards this it should be said, first, that if 
any genuine teaching is to be done the period of 
teaching must be lengthened. The Sunday-school 
session of one hour, in which twenty minutes is 
given to opening exercises, twenty minutes to the 
lesson, and twenty minutes to closing addresses 
and songs, is almost useless for the study of 
the Bible. Ideally, a half-day is best, but, as 
things are, probably impracticable. Half an 
hour is the least time that should be given to 
the study of the lesson, and three-quarters of an 
hour or an hour is better. It is easy to feel the 
objection to this lengthening of the period. The 
teacher asks in despair: "What shall I do with 
my uneasy pupils during so long a time?" It 
would probably voice the feelings of many a 
teacher to say that one of the most welcome 
sounds of the Sunday-school session is the bell 
which marks the closing of the teaching period. 
But in fact the matter reduces itself to this alter- 
native : Will or will not the teacher teach ? If 
he is simply to amuse his class and administer 
such good advice, or make such exhortations, as 
the order of the class permits, twenty minutes is 
too long. He had better not teach at all. If 



FOR THE SUNDAY SCHOOL 89 

he is really to teach, twenty minutes is too short 
a time. 

But dismissing the case of the teacher who 
cannot teach, let us assume that the teacher him- 
self knows how to study, and has studied, and 
intends to teach his class to study. Let us 
further assume for example's sake that the class 
is composed of boys and girls of high-school 
age or a trifle younger. How shall such a teacher 
induce such pupils to study ? 

In some cases it is probably possible to appeal Appeal can 
to a sense of duty on the part of the pupil. Here, madTtoduty 
of course, the personal equation is very large. 
Some teachers have the power more easily than 
others to reach the conscience of their pupils. 
On the other hand, some pupils are more con- 
scientious than others in their undertaking of 
tasks assigned them in the Sunday school. There 
is undoubtedly a moral discipline in arousing the 
pupil's sense of duty, but it is to be admitted that 
in the great majority of cases responsibility sits 
very light upon a member of a Sunday-school 
class, and even the sight of a teacher's careful 
preparation too often does little more than arouse 
the pupil's admiration. 

In this connection there is suggested the one But seldom 
method which, primarily at least, has been t0 ear 
efficient in the public schools; that is, the inflic- 
tion of some sort of punishment for a failure to 



9° 



PRINCIPLES AND IDEALS 



prepare one's lesson properly. In rare cases, 
probably, punishment or penalty might be efficient, 
but the ties which hold a boy or girl to a Sunday 
school are so voluntary and weak, as compared 
with the compulsion which keeps pupils in the 
public school, that any large or general appeal to 
fear is likely to drive the pupil from the class 
altogether. Above all, scolding is the most suc- 
cessful means yet invented of depopulating a 
Sunday-school class. 
interest must But however much may be done by appeal to 

butYnThat? duty, however little by penalty or scolding, 
the fundamental effort of the teacher must 
be to awaken the interest of the pupil in the sub- 
ject under consideration. In a voluntary class, 
such as is generally to be found in the Sunday 
school, this is practically the only method. Only 
it is to be borne in mind that the problem 
is not that of arousing interest in the teaching of 
the lesson by the teacher, and even less in the 
Sunday school or in the class. Each of these may 
be a means to the end, but the end is to arouse 
sufficient interest in the lesson itself to lead the 
pupils to study it. Any means by which the 
teacher can get a personal hold upon the affection 
of the pupil is, of course, to be commended. 
The organization of the class into a club which 
meets on week days for debates, illustrated lec- 
tures, or athletic sports has repeatedly proved a 



FOR THE SUNDAY SCHOOL 91 

great means of awakening an esprit de corps with- 
in a class, but even when the pupil is thus identi- 
fied with the teacher and the Sunday school itself 
there remains the further difficulty of transmitting 
his social interest into a studious interest in the 
Bible. Another caution is to be borne in mind, The teacher 

. is not an 

and one which in the light of the so-called success entertainer 
of many teachers needs especial emphasis. Sim- 
ply to amuse a class while the Sunday school is 
in session is not to arouse interest in the study of 
the lesson. It is the easiest thing in the world 
to amuse a Sunday-school class — to talk to the 
boys about football games, or talk to the girls 
about each other's dress, or tell funny stories, or 
even stories about the Bible. But a teacher who 
has merely amused his class is not a teacher. He 
has simply been an entertainer; he has cheapened 
his office. Even enthusiasm must be directed 
to tasks before it is efficient. Here there will be 
as many expedients as there are real teachers, 
and it is often true of a teacher, as of a poet, that 
he is born, not manufactured. None the less, 
pedagogy is as much an art as a science, and 
there are certain results of pedagogical experi- 
ence that are unquestionably of service just at 
this point. 

Let us assume that the lesson is adapted First sugges- 
to the pupil, for unless this be the case the °^' t f n 
teacher will labor in vain. With this assumed, contact 



9 2 



PRINCIPLES AND IDEALS 



Second 
suggestion: 
Study 
historically 



the first thing needed is some point of contact 
between the lesson and the pupil. To neglect 
this requirement is the first assurance of failure. 
The boy or girl — or, for that matter, the man or 
woman — who fails to see some particular relation 
between himself or herself and the lesson will 
never be induced to study. But once let some 
common ground of interest be established and 
the teacher's way is open. Here perhaps as 
much as at any point will be the test of the 
teacher's fitness for his work. He needs to begin 
where he can, not where he wishes to. The great 
thing is to begin. If this common ground of 
interest cannot be discovered, it must be made. 
Any hint or question may be appropriated. A 
class of restless boys was once transformed by its 
teacher's seizing upon some symptom of interest 
in the topography of Jerusalem. For a year 
those boys worked on the subject, and then were 
ready to study matters suggested by their own 
work. If one cannot have a precisely similar 
success, try some other approach, even if it be 
boys' interest in war and girls' interest in house- 
keeping. 

In the second place, the pupil should be 
taught to see the lesson in its historical setting. 
Every approach to the lesson should be through 
biography or history. Prophecy is marvelously 
attractive when one appreciates the situation in 



FOR THE SUNDAY SCHOOL 93 

which the prophet spoke. Such historical set- 
ting must be something more than the mere de- 
scription of what this king did and the other king 
did not do. The teacher must saturate his mind 
with the events, the life, with the conditions of 
the people, as well as with the mere dates And 
this he must, by any possible means, get the pupil 
to do also, for if Christianity means anything it 
means that religious truth is to be understood 
through the revelation of God in actual human 
life. If the teacher makes a lesson from Isaiah 
or Paul abstract, it is prima facie evidence that 
his method is wrong. Human interest, when once 
felt, will kindle studious interest. As has already 
been urged, in making real this historical situa- 
tion help can be gained from modern history, 
and especially from the history which the pupil is 
studying in the public school. In tracing this 
parallelism will also be found the key to the best 
possible u application, " viz., a study of the appli- 
cability of the exact scriptural teaching to the 
conditions of today. 

In the third place, let the pupil's task be spe- Third 
cific. Indefinite requirements and expectations Le^taslTbe 
are the bane of most schools. Give each pupil a definite 
definite problem — not too hard — to work out. 
It may be, of course, that more than one pupil or 
the entire class may have the same problem, but 
let it be as human as possible, definite, and very 



94 PRINCIPLES AND IDEALS 

specific. If the teacher has prepared himself 
rationally, he will have found that the passage 
chosen for the coming Sunday's lesson is full of 
questions, which can be definitely assigned in 
advance to members of the class. The prepara- 
tion of answers to these should be required, and 
the discussion of these answers should constitute 
the lesson. As far as possible questions and 
answers should be in writing. With such a 
method, if the teacher is reasonably master of the 
subject and is alive to the possibilities of his posi- 
tion, he may overcome the difficulties of even a 
very unwisely selected series of lessons. It may 
not even be necessary to use any series; the 
teacher may instead deal with some special phase 
of biblical study. 
Let the This assigned work should be something more 

than the mere reading of the Scriptures. Each 
pupil should be expected to contribute some defi- 
nite element to the study of the lesson. Here 
the teacher's skill will be shown in the exploiting 
of each pupil's peculiarities and capacities. The 
lesson must be blocked out each Sunday in ad- 
vance. No teacher can make a success of his work 
by simply telling the class that next Sunday they 
will take the next lesson in the quarterly. There 
should be as much care in assigning the lesson as 
in applying it. Let the last ten minutes of the 
session be devoted to outlining the work for each 



class be 
co-operative 



FOR THE SUNDAY SCHOOL 95 

pupil to do during the week. The pupil should 
be asked, for example, to bring information from 
his work in the public school during the week 
which shall illustrate the lesson, or, better, bring 
it into line with common life. If the lesson 
is upon Isaiah's attack upon the rich men, let 
the student be. asked to bring in from the 
newspapers instances of modern attacks upon 
rich men, and then let the comparison between 
the prophet's method and that of the agitator 
be noticed. If the lesson is upon some piece 
of biographical matter, as, for example, the 
voyage of Paul, let the pupil be told to bring in 
something about the places which Paul visited, 
each pupil taking perhaps one city. So, simi- 
larly, in the matter of exegetical study. If the 
questions are made distinct enough, a class of 
boys and girls twelve years old can do an aston- 
ishing amount of downright exegetical study. 
Here it would be best, probably, for this work to 
be reported in writing. Then in the class let the 
various answers to the questions be discussed. 

In the treatment of these reports, written or Fourth 
oral, the teacher has the greatest opportunity for su gs estion - 

x x J Appreciate 

stimulating the ambition and the interest of the good work 
pupil. Just how he will treat them will depend 
very largely upon the character of the lesson and 
the character of the class. One thing a teacher 
will be careful not to do — indiscriminately blame 



9 6 



PRINCIPLES AND IDEALS 



pupil's 
ambition 



a pupil for poor but honest work. In fact, he 
must remember always that his chief object is 
constructive. At this point one must appeal to 
the strongest motives, and, as far as it can be 
Appeal to the done rightfully, to the pupil's ambition. In some 
cases it has proved highly advantageous to offer 
prizes for the best quality of work done during a 
certain period. In other cases it has been enough 
to rank the work brought in, as is done in the 
public schools, giving, perhaps, honorable men- 
tion for work of a certain grade. If the Sunday 
school is graded, it is possible to make the 
pupil's written work a basis for promotion. But at 
the same time that the appeal is made to ambition 
it is indispensable that the reasonableness and 
duty of a proper understanding of the Bible be 
also enforced. The main object is here to develop 
studious habits, not pride. If a teacher can get 
a pupil to undertake a series of tasks in suc- 
cessive weeks, that very fact will have engen- 
dered interest, or, at least, a habit that is quite 
as good. But the teacher himself should know 
how to use the results of the pupil's work. 
Simply to allow him to read his answers and then 
sit dumb and quiet — or, more probably, noisy and 
restless — while another is reading his report, will 
be not only to dampen interest, but to kill the class. 
When the pupil brings in the report of his work 
the second great duty of the teacher begins. He 



The duty of 
the teacher 



FOR THE SUNDAY SCHOOL 97 

must take his pupils' results and combine them, Study should 
explain them, apply them. Every lesson should religious 
be a unit, and, however varied the tasks assigned feelln s s 
to each boy or girl, when their reports are made 
the teacher must make it evident to them that 
they have been co-working. By a proper placing 
of emphasis in this co-operation the teacher can 
lead the pupil so to master the religious and 
moral meaning of the Scripture as to be strength- 
ened morally and religiously. If once the pupil 
has been led to study, he may well be expected 
to be interested in and devoted to the truth he 
has learned. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

THE TEACHER AND THE RELIGIOUS LIFE 
OF THE PUPIL. 

The In previous chapters we have repeatedly laid down 

fundamentally an ^ emphasized the principle that the ultimate 
religious m purpose of all Sunday-school teaching, as of all 
other parts of the work of the Sunday school, is 
religious. The conversion of the pupil and his 
development in Christian character are the ends 
for which the Sunday school exists. These 
ends are to be sought in the Sunday school 
mainly through instruction, and in particular 
through the teaching of the Bible. Mainly, we 
say, but not exclusively. The Sunday-school 
teacher is not simply a teacher. His religious 
influence on the pupil ought not to be limited, 
cannot be limited, to that which he brings to 
bear through the knowledge of the Bible which 
he imparts, or which the pupil under his instruc- 
tion gains. He is, or ought to be, the friend 
and pastor of the pupil as well as his instructor. 
Whether he intend it or not, he will through 
his own character affect the character of his 
pupil. In a large proportion of cases certainly 
the teacher fails to make full use of his opportu- 

98 



FOR THE SUNDAY SCHOOL 99 

nity if he does not by conscious and direct effort 
seek to exert on his pupil a helpful religious in- 
fluence. These propositions we state dogmati- 
cally, without argument, believing that they will 
be accepted by our readers generally. It is not 
these that we propose to discuss, but rather the 
question how the teacher can most effectively 
make his relation to the pupil, whether as in- 
structor or as friend, most conducive to the pu- 
pil's religious development. 

Consider, then, what the teacher can do in How can 
direct connection with his work of teaching. To mademost 6 
guard against misapprehension, let that be re- ^ c } lyQ ? 
peated which has been previously insisted on in 
these pages, that that study and teaching of the 
Bible are not the most effective, religiously, 
which, disdaining to take time for interpretation, 
plunge headlong into application. Moral effect 
is to be obtained through the presentation of 
truth ; truth is conveyed in the Bible through 
direct statement, or through facts full of mean- 
ing ; both demand interpretation. But when 
this is clearly recognized and admitted the ques- 
tion still remains : How can the teacher make 
his interpretative teaching most effective reli- 
giously ? 

In the first place, let it be said that the reli- The religious 
gious purpose must pervade the whole process of J^ ^ 
study and teaching. The existence of such a 



. 



ioo PRINCIPLES AND IDEALS 

purpose deeply rooted in the heart of the teacher 
gives to his whole work an atmosphere difficult 
to define, but sure to influence the pupil, though 
perhaps as unconsciously as it is exerted. This 
intangible but very real quality which is imparted 
to one's teaching by the spirit and motive with 
which it is undertaken, this atmosphere which is 
created by the fact that the teacher's work is un- 
dertaken with prayer and carried forward with 
the supreme desire to render his pupils a real re- 
ligious service, is the most important factor of 
the teacher's work, religiously speaking. 
Application of But such a purpose, clearly and constantly 
conscience maintained, does more than create an atmosphere. 
legitimate and jf combined with the recognition of the teacher's 

necessary ° 

function as an interpreter, of which we have al- 
ready spoken, it will in the highest degree con- 
duce to a perception of how the facts and truths 
of the Scripture can be made to apply to the 
needs and consciences of the pupils. There is, 
no doubt, a prejudice on the part of many intelli- 
gent teachers against any direct spiritual applica- 
tion of the lesson to the class. The prejudice 
has its occasion and excuse in the too prevalent 
substitution of rough-and-ready application for 
real teaching. And it may, indeed, be doubted 
whether teaching without application is not bet- 
ter than application without teaching. But it by 
no means follows that teaching without applica- 



FOR THE SUNDAY SCHOOL 101 

tion is better than teaching with it. In truth, if 
the teacher really teaches the Scripture, brings 
out its meaning in a genuinely historical spirit, 
induces the pupil both to see the facts and teach- 
ings which it contains in their true light and to 
fix them in mind, he need have no fear of cheap- 
ening his work by pointing out faithfully the re- 
lation of the truths, thus set in a clear intellectual The nature 
light, to the life and duty of the pupil. Strong, app^cation 
clear, religious teaching, serious appeal to the con- 
science based on fair exposition of the Scripture, 
is not repugnant to the pupils of our Sunday 
schools. They need it, and they will welcome it. 
It is not this, but feeble and oft-repeated exhor- 
tation based on nothing in particular, that repels 
them and drives them from the school as soon as 
they get beyond the years of childhood. The 
teacher who fairly and forcibly brings forth the 
meaning of the Scripture record, setting fact in 
relation to fact, and teaching in the light of its 
historic occasion — such a teacher does well. But 
he does better who to such intellectually strong 
teaching adds now and again, w T hen the occasion 
permits and his heart impels him, the equally 
clear, forcible, and direct appeal to the con- 
sciences of his pupils. And he who strenuously 
excludes this latter element from his teaching 
robs that teaching of an element which would 
give it, not only added religious value, but in- 
creased attractiveness. 



io2 PRINCIPLES AND IDEALS 

Religious But the best teachers are, as we have said, 

influence . 

outside the something more than instructors. They are also 
class friends and pastors to their pupils. In this latter 

character they have the opportunity to exert a re- 
ligious influence, we will not say superior to that 
which they can exert in the work of teaching, for 
it is doubtful whether this is possible, but at any 
rate complementary to that of the class hour. 
Suggestions of method in this matter must of 
necessity be of a general character. The problem 
is in every case a personal one. No one can lay 
down rules by the application of which one per- 
son can influence another religiously. The fun- 
damental conditions for the exertion of such an 
influence are a genuine Christian character on 
the part of the teacher and a genuine interest in 
the religious walfare of the pupil. This interest 
must not be merely professional and perfunctory, 
but sincere and personal. Given this, the teacher 
will find his own ways, whether by private con- 
versation, by class prayer-meetings, by invitations 
to the services of the church, or by acts of per- 
sonal kindness, which, combined with the teach- 
ings of the class hour, will express, perhaps as 
effectively as any other means could, his genuine 
and deep desire for the religious welfare of his 
pupil. 

But effective as may be such expressions of 
the teacher's own desire, he cannot be content 



FOR THE SUNDAY SCHOOL 103 

with this. Some response must be expected from The response 
the pupil. The teacher will endeavor by every be expected 
legitimate means to induce those for whom he 
labors to express every newly aroused religious 
emotion and purpose in some definite act which 
will tend to make it of permanent moral effect. To 
arouse emotion which produces no effect on con- 
duct is a serious pedagogical mistake. The test 
of the teacher's success in this matter is not his 
facility in exciting the pupils' feelings, but his 
ability so to arouse them that each such experi- 
ence shall leave the pupil on a higher moral plane 
than it found him. Just how the teacher will do 
this must be left largely to his own good sense. 
First in importance is the necessity that the 
pupil be brought to a definite consecration of 
himself to the Christian life. This decision, Conversion 
which for brevity we have already repeatedly 
spoken of as " conversion, " must of course always 
be a personal and individual experience. It is a 
matter of secondary importance whether the 
pupil himself is definitely aware of its nature, or 
recognizes at the moment its importance, or 
passes through it simultaneously with others. 
Yet in some form the idea that underlies the so- 
called " Decision Day " may be found practicable 
and helpful. Many young people will be greatly 
aided in making a confession of a new faith by 
finding that those of their own age are also taking 



104 PRINCIPLES AND IDEALS 

the same step. Religious action is less difficult 
when social than when individual. 

On the other hand, the recognition of the fact 
that in certain stages in their growth young 
persons are especially susceptible to religious 
impulses will lead the intelligent teacher to avoid 
anything like merely conventional or too often 
repeated religious exhortation, which, however 
well intended, is very apt to alienate boys and 
girls, if indeed not to deaden their religious sen- 
sibilities. The teacher needs to remember that 
real decision, that deep emotional and volitional 
change which constitutes the great epoch in the 
religious life of the pupil, can never be forced by 
pressure or excitement. In the pupils' case as 
in his own, it is often dangerous to seek imme- 
diate externally recognizable results. The divine 
Spirit works very gently and unnoticed in 
young hearts, and the strongest and sweetest 
natures often ripen very slowly. At the same 
time, boys and girls, as they approach adoles- 
cence, and again as they approach maturity, are 
especially susceptible to religious appeals. The 
wise teacher will not only be patient, but will 
be quick to seize upon the moment thus made 
strategic by nature itself. 

But it would be a serious mistake to regard 
a teacher's religious duty to his pupils as ful- 
filled when he has been instrumental in their con- 



FOR THE SUNDAY SCHOOL 105 

version. After the pupil's decision to lead a The passage 
Christian life has been learned, the teacher's [j^nkine to 
effort will be in a true sense religiously educa- an . intelligent 
tional. He will seek to lead the new life of the 
pupil into the larger and stronger state that may 
await it. Too often teachers overlook this respon- 
sibility, but it is always present. As the teacher 
grows, so should his Christian pupils grow. Just 
because he is their friend the teacher must edu- 
cate them by sharing with them his own broad- 
ening faith. But here we pass from principles 
to personality. There is no rule to be quoted. 
The teacher must act the friend, and friendship 
needs no pedagogy. 

Yet there is one particular phase of this part Difficulties in 
of the teacher's work that demands a special theteacher,s 

* attempt 

word. How shall the teacher most effectively 
help those pupils whose transition from a child- 
hood's to a manhood's faith is attended with 
struggle and doubt ? In the case of many persons 
life produces no change in faith, and a man dies 
as he has lived, accepting vital truths without 
either well-grounded dissent or assent. But in the 
case of many genuine students and teachers there 
come times when an unreasoning acceptance of 
God and truth is no longer possible, or, at least, 
is unsatisfactory, and an attempt is made, as far 
as possible, to base faith upon grounds which can 
command the assent of one's more mature thought. 



106 PRINCIPLES AND IDEALS 

Moments of Such moments are critical in a person's own 
religious life; but it may be doubted whether 
for an honest man they are half as critical as the 
attempt to lead another from an unthinking to a 
rational faith. Then there is involved not merely 
the question of one's own religious health, but 
also the entire question of the possibility of lead- 
ing another mind through change into a new spir- 
itual experience. There is the possibility that the 
teacher will not only unsettle, but destroy, anoth- 
er's faith. There is the danger that, in breaking 
down the old authority upon which faith was 
based, there will be also broken down the moral 
authority which controlled the other's life. 

why attempt For these and other reasons a conscientious 

faith e f r ° Un teacher who is growing in Christian knowledge 
and faith is tempted to ask, Is the effort worth 
the pains? If superstition gives birth to hpnesty, 
why attempt to abolish it ? If unthinking faith 
and conventional acceptance of doctrine make 
a man's life pure and helpful, why not leave him 
enjoying things so effective ? Why compel him 
to run the risks with which the educational 
problem confronts one ? 

inaction is These difficulties are not merely rhetorical. 

Probably no man who is deliberately attempting 
such an educational process escapes the feeling 
at times that his efforts are gratuitous and 
ill-advised, if not hurtful. It is far easier to 



easier 



FOR THE SUNDAY SCHOOL 107 

withdraw from such efforts than to devote him- 
self to discovering their proper method. A Sun- 
day-school teacher who finds his young class 
unable to follow the intellectual experience 
through which he himself has passed often is 
tempted to say that the experience may very well 
be kept in the background, and the boy or girl be 
allowed to follow along the line of such religious 
thought as circumstances may determine. 

Such considerations are of weight; but, after a teacher 
all, of not much weight. They simply emphasize ™^^£ 
the need that the teacher who wishes to help his with the pupil 
pupil must be cautious — as wise as a serpent, if 
he wishes to be harmless as a dove. They do not 
inculcate the duty of silence or of a retreat from 
an educational effort ; for why should not re- 
ligious faith share in a person's intellectual 
growth? Why should a child whose future will 
lead him into the problems of law, or medicine, 
or modern business, be taught to be content 
with a faith about whose foundations he does 
not allow himself to think? Is it not rather the 
duty of a teacher to train his pupils to grow in the 
capacity for faith? 

For a man who has new glimpses of religion 
to refuse to share them with immature minds is 
downright selfishness. In the same proportion 
as the one is able to bear should the other reveal. 
There is nothing more remarkable in the min- 



io8 



PRINCIPLES AND IDEALS 



The teaching 
of today is 
making the 
Christianity 
of tomorrow 



But what if 
a teacher 
be mistaken? 



istry of Jesus than his recognition of this prin- 
ciple. He was as far as possible from adopt- 
ing a policy of ultra-caution in this respect. 
The future of Christianity among an intelligent 
people will depend upon the degree of success 
attending the efforts of those who are teaching 
boys and girls to accept the gospel as a reve- 
lation of God, and who, by sharing with their 
pupils their own broadening religious thought and 
experience, are aiding them to see the reasonable- 
ness and the beauty of a Christian truth. 

But what if the teacher be mistaken and his 
message be not true? Undoubtedly here is a dan- 
ger. If any man should be humble and prayerful, 
it is he to whom there has been given a new vision 
of divine truth. Novelties often masquerade as 
truth. But if a man has trained himself to ele- 
mentary intellectual honesty; if he is less desirous 
of reputation than of verity ; if he is himself pro- 
foundly convinced that what he believes to be 
true is true — there is nothing for him to do but 
to teach it. 

A teacher must give his pupils the best there is 
in him ; and if that best be new, then, in so far 
as he believes it helpful, must he share it, or be 
forever an unprofitable servant who has hidden 
his Lord's talent in a napkin. 

A faith in the Bible as a storehouse and reve- 
lation of divine thought and in truth as an effect- 



FOR THE SUNDAY SCHOOL 109 

ive agency for the production of character, which Summary: 

The 

will constrain the teacher to make it his first prerequisites 
aim in teaching to bring forth clearly the mean- of religious 

J effectiveness 

ing of the Scripture, and to make his whole work 
fundamentally interpretative ; a genuine Christian 
character and a sincerely religious and prayerful 
life; an unaffected personal interest in the reli- 
gious welfare of his pupils; a readiness to utilize 
moments and conditions especially favorable to 
conversion ; a profound sense of his responsibility 
to share his maturing faith, rather than his ques- 
tionings, with the immature minds intrusted to 
him ; sanctified courage, and good sense in devis- 
ing ways and means — these, we believe, are qual- 
ities which will assure not only intellectually, but 
religiously, effective Sunday-school teaching. 



CHAPTER IX. 



Popular 
interest in 
Bible study 
a new 
phenomenon 



THE PASTOR AS A TEACHER OF TEACHERS. 

One cannot have good instruction without good 
instructors. Never was this truism so evidently 
true as today. The remarkable growth of interest 
in Bible study now everywhere evident demands 
the immediate improvement of the teaching force 
in all our churches. It is not many years since the 
members of churches allowed their pastors to 
serve as their vicars in such study, and were con- 
tent with such crumbs of biblical lore as fell from 
sermons or Sunday-school helps. It is true that 
Christian people, then as always, may be sup- 
posed to have read the Bible, but, if results are 
any criterion, in the great majority of cases such 
reading was desultory and thoughtless. Speaking 
generally, the Bible was consulted, committed to 
memory, even worshipped ; but it was not studied. 
Contrast this situation with that in the 
churches today. The revolt against Sunday- 
school methods that were satisfactory ten years 
ago has practically become a revolution. Bible 
classes — some with very rudimentary methods, 
it must be admitted — number thousands of 
members. Bible-Study Leagues, Young Peo- 



FOR THE SUNDAY SCHOOL in 

pie's Societies' courses, Reading Guilds, corre- 
spondence courses of innumberable sorts, popular 
lectures — these do not begin to exhaust the evi- 
dence at hand pointing to the widespread de- 
mand for Bible study among the rank and file of 
church members. The American Institute of 
Sacred Literature alone during a single year has 
ten thousand persons enrolled as students, some 
individually and some in classes. So ubiquitous 
is the interest that it may almost be said to be 
a characteristic of the day. To neglect it is to It cannot 
neglect a sign of the times. The rank and file 
of the churches may not be in advance of their 
leaders, but they are certainly making new de- 
mands for instruction. The present generation 
has suffered so greatly from ignorant and fanati- 
cal interpreters of the Scriptures that it sees 
clearly that, so far as the Bible is concerned, its 
only hope lies in a sane and rational knowledge 
of the biblical teachings. 

Those who have carefully observed the cur- its cause 
rents of church life during the past twenty-five 
years, and who have kept themselves in touch 
with theological tendencies, cannot be surprised 
at the present condition of affairs. In many 
quarters it has, indeed, been foreseen. For it 
cannot be traced to any one agency, or to any 
local causes, and it is peculiar to no country or 
denomination. Germany and England, France 



I 12 



PRINCIPLES AND IDEALS 



The result 
of historical 
study 



Its inspiring 
message 



and America, though in differing degrees, have 
all shared in the movement; while both the 
great Roman church and all really virile Prot- 
estant denominations have felt the same need 
and in many ways have attempted to satisfy it. 

Yet this very universality argues a common 
cause, and that, too, one not hard to find. Compare 
the age of pietistic, "commenting" devotion to the 
Bible with today, and the great difference at 
once appears : the supremacy of the historical meth- 
od. So long as the Bible was studied for the 
purpose of establishing doctrines, so long its study 
could appeal but to the theologically mind- 
ed. That it was so studied, and that such study 
was considered the only legitimate method, will 
appear to anyone who will recall the reception 
accorded pioneer popular works like those of 
Stanley in the Old Testament field or Seeley in 
that of the New. Men thought it as impious to 
speak of Jesus being historically conditioned as 
to speak of men as descendants of the lower 
animals. Religious teachers were bent on sustain- 
ing theologies, and the ordinary Christian judged 
Bible study by its theological fruits. 

And then into the midst of it all came the 
summons, alarming at first, but to every man 
who was in touch with the thought of his age 
full of inspiration : Study the Bible as one 
studies other literatures ; interpret its teachings 



FOR THE SUNDAY SCHOOL 113 

in the light of the circumstances for which they 
were intended and out of which they sprang; 
use historical results to discriminate between the 
essential and the accidental ; in all things hold 
yourself independent of all dogma and discover 
what the biblical writers actually taught, not 
what they ought to have taught. No student 
will ever forget the moment when for .the first 
time he realized the full significance of such 
a summons. Brought face to face with a choice 
between such a method and the abandonment of 
some dogmatic position, he who chose to follow 
the new call suddenly found himself interested The new 
as never before in all that pertains to the Bible. 
It was not merely a new literature, it was a new 
revelation of God ; and in the first flush of his 
enthusiasm he endeavored to lead others into 
similiar independence and similiar appreciation 
of biblical truth. Hebrew and Assyriology, 
Greek grammar and ancient history, were no 
longer of merely academic interest. The touch 
of history that had revivified the Bible revivified, 
even when it did not create, a world of allied 
interests. 

The fruit of this new spirit, diffused by teach- 
ers and publications through a quarter of a 
century in America, we are just beginning to dis- 
cover. Popular interest in the Bible is the out- 
come of popularizing historical methods. And 



ii 4 PRINCIPLES AND IDEALS 

this fact in itself shows the need of better pre- 
pared teachers in the Sunday school. There are 
Two two suggestions springing from these facts. The 

suggestions: ^ . . . 

(i) The first is this : The Christian minister, if he is wise, 
minister must .y reco pr n i ze this interest and conform to it. It 

recognize the o 

new interest is only a matter of working wisely and along the 
line of least resistance. It is idle to plead that the 
minister already has so many imperative duties 
that he cannot add another. The situation is 
too critical for such casuistry. Here is a great 
popular movement in the churches ; will minis- 
ters direct it, or will they abandon the strategic 
opportunity and conscientiously but blindly pre- 
fer a course of action that, as any sensible min- 
ister confesses, leads into a restless activity that 
distracts quite as much as it edifies ? 

(2) Popular The second suggestion is intended for those 

Bible study . . , , ... 

must be ministers who recognize the strategic situation 

historical an( j determine to exploit it. It is this : Do not 
make the mistake of believing that anything 
short of the true historical method will either 
satisfy yourself or meet the demands of your 
people. You do not need to be specialists in 
historical criticism, but you do need to teach the 
Bible as those who know about its composition, 
its history, its times. Merely to make pious or 
"spiritual" comments may for a time interest 
pious people, but the real teaching of the Bible 
is not to be gained merely by homiletical ingenu- 



FOR THE SUNDAY SCHOOL 115 

ity, religious zeal, or even spiritual insight. The 
Bible from today forward will interest and in- 
spire in the same proportion as it is studied and 
taught, not only sympathetically and prayerfully, 
but also historically. First discover precisely 
what the inspired writers meant to teach their 
own times, and then will one see clearly how to 
apply that teaching to one's own time. 

But the opportunity for pastors is by no 
means exhausted by these general considera- 
tions. Upon them, we cannot but believe, rests 
ultimately the responsibility of seeing that the 
Bible is taught by properly instructed persons. 
Speaking generally, and always with due allow- The 
ance for necessary exceptions, much religious ? eed of 

J A ° instructed 

indifference and doubt may be traced to the instructors 
instruction in the Bible received in the Sunday 
school. The impressions made in childhood, be 
they never so general, are almost certain to 
affect, if not to regulate, the thinking of one's 
maturer years, and many a man has passed 
through a paralyzing struggle with doubt which 
might have been avoided had there been no mis- 
leading teaching as to the Bible given him while 
a child. 

If there were no other reason, this fact makes 
it indispensable that the Sunday-school teacher 
should have training in Bible study. It is 
unpardonable for the Protestant churches to 



n6 PRINCIPLES AND IDEALS 

leave the doctrinal and religious instruction of 
their future members to untrained men and 
women who must inevitably propagate misin- 
terpretations of the Scripture and its teachings. 
To guarantee intelligent faith in the man demands 
that there be intelligent instructors of the 
child. It is the knowledge that such prepara- 
tion is not demanded in the average Sunday 
school that causes many parents to fear to 
expose their children to the danger of being 
taught, as divinely inspired truths, crude opin- 
ions which must be unlearned in later years. 
For in unlearning such instruction they are only 
too liable to question Christianity itself. The 
remedy for such a danger to the church lies in 
the biblical education of its lay workers. 
The sort of And this education must be something more 

needed than a cramming process. Sunday-school teach- 

ers must know something more than what to 
teach on the next Sunday. Such a process, 
so frequently the sole work of a teacher's meet- 
ing, may perhaps be better than nothing ; for 
presumably the pastor or the superintendent is 
more intelligent in the use of the Scripture than 
those he instructs ; but there is in it little or no 
disciplinary value, and too often but little to 
lead the teacher to adopt a correct attitude 
toward the Bible as a whole, or to biblical 
teaching as a whole. The proper training for 



FOR THE SUNDAY SCHOOL 117 

the Sunday-school teacher is that received by 
the pastor himself. Not that it should be in the 
original languages — although there are many 
Sunday-school teachers who might well study 
the Scripture in Greek or in Hebrew — but rather 
that the teacher should be taught to handle his 
Bible as theological students are taught in any 
reputable seminary how to handle theirs They 
should learn to adopt the historical point of 
view; to become interpreters rather than com- 
ment-makers ; to let the Bible do its own teach- 
ing. They should be taught to use the best helps, 
even though they are not the product of their own 
denominational publishing house ; to distinguish 
rigorously between a lesson suggested by a 
passage and the actual teaching of that passage. 
They should be taught that exhortation is value- 
less unless it presupposes instruction, and that 
their first duty as teachers in the Sunday-school 
is not to entertain their pupils, but to instruct 
them in the Word of God. 

The pastor cannot safely abandon this teach- The pastor 
ing of those who are to teach the members of ™her S aCh 
the future church to enthusiastic young women 
or young men totally uninstructed except by 
others themselves uninstructed. Goodness, spirit- 
uality, prayerfulness, indispensable as each is, 
can never by themselves make suitable Sunday- 
school workers. It is the duty of the pastor to 



n8 



PRINCIPLES AND IDEALS 



The pastor 
must train 
up a 

generation 
of Bible 
students 



train up teachers. If he does not do it, who 
will ? And if he does not do it well, who will 
correct his errors ? And if untaught or ill-taught 
teachers propagate their ignorance, the ineffi- 
ciency and ignorance of his church, and the 
struggles of his parishioners with doubt, must be 
charged in large measure to the pastor himself, 
who, while pretending to stand for the truth of 
the Bible, has not trained his teachers to teach it. 
But a pastor's duty is by no means limited to 
those who constitute the teaching force of the 
Sunday school. So long as any member of his 
church is likely to be drafted into the work 
of instruction, it will be his duty to be the bibli- 
cal teacher of his entire church. He cannot for 
a moment forget that, as the ordinary church 
is organized, biblical instruction will be given the 
young by lay workers and not by himself. They, 
and not he, give men their first theological im- 
pressions. His duty, therefore, is clear. He 
must not only himself become a conscientious, 
unsectarian student of the Bible, but he must 
also train up a generation of men and women to 
be the same. He must see that the religious 
instruction given children is moral and soundly 
biblical. In this way alone can he hope to build 
up a strong and long-lived organization. Anec- 
dotes, oratory, theological demagogism, may 
draw the crowds and swell the church rolls, but 



FOR THE SUNDAY SCHOOL 119 

not one of them will build a strong church. The The final 
country is strewn with wrecks of societies which 
have been for a moment swollen into abnormal 
size by some entertaining speaker; but one will 
look long for a church whose pastor has met the 
responsibility for the biblical instruction which 
is not, and will not remain, virile. 

In a single sentence : The pastor must be the 
teacher of teachers. 



PART II 
THE SCHOOL 



CHAPTER I. 

THE REQUIREMENTS OF A GRADED SCHOOL. 

When we pass from questions that pertain to the what is 

i r i t . i . i • i meant b y 

work of the teacher in relation to his class to grading 

those which pertain to the school at large, there 
is no topic of greater importance from the dis- 
tinctly educational point of view than that of the 
grading of the school. By this we mean the 
grouping together of pupils for the purpose of 
instruction, and the adaptation to the classes thus 
formed of subject-matter to be taught and the 
method of teaching. Every school has some sys- 
tem of grading. No school puts four-year-old 
children and white-haired grandfathers into the 
same class. But this is almost the only general 
statement on this subject that can be made re- 
specting the Sunday school as it is today. Scarce- 
ly anything in the whole work of the Sunday 
school is in greater chaos than this matter of 
grading. In many schools, probably in most, 
personal friendship between pupils, personal at- 
tachment existing, or supposed to exist, between 
pupils and teacher, have far greater influence in 
determining what pupils shall constitute a class 
than any other consideration. Incidentally this 

123 



124 PRINCIPLES AND IDEALS 

is likely to bring together pupils of about 
the same age. In very few schools is there 
any distinct recognition of the relative grade 
Grading as f classes. In a rough way classes are grad- 
ed by the assignment to them of a primary, 
intermediate, advanced, or senior quarterly. But 
beyond this no one can tell what is the grade, 
relative or fixed, of any class. In most schools 
there is, aside perhaps from the classes in the 
primary department, not only no attempt to adapt 
the material chosen from the Bible for study to 
the several grades of classes, but there is a fixed 
policy not to make any such adjustment, but on 
principle to have all the classes study the same 
Scripture passage on any given Sunday. In the 
matter of adaptation of method of teaching to the 
age and progress of the pupils the situation is 
perhaps not quite so chaotic. The editors of the 
lesson-helps seek, of cburse, to adapt the method 
of teaching suggested in a given quarterly to pu- 
pils of that age for which the particular quarterly 
is intended, and each teacher who has any skill 
in teaching aims to adapt the work to his own 
Difference of class. It is upon these two elements that we 
inksson * must always rely for adaptation in method. But 
even in this the situation is far from ideal. Not 
only are the lesson helps too often very unskil- 
fully "graded," but there is a lamentable lack of 
pedagogical skill in the construction of any 



FOR THE SUNDAY SCHOOL 125 

grade. This defect is most serious in the higher 
grades. Teachers of advanced classes, influ- 
enced as all teachers are, save the few who have 
a real genius for teaching, by the text-book 
which is put into their hands, too often regard 
their duty as having been fulfilled when half an 
hour has been filled with asking questions printed The case of 
upon a lesson sheet. Were these questions al- pup ii s 
ways such as are calculated to inspire interest in 
either teacher or pupils the case would be more 
hopeful, but too often they are perfunctory and 
inane. The high-school pupil loses his respect 
for the Bible and religion when the same person 
who teaches him with an evident mastery of his 
subject during the week undertakes a similar serv- 
ice on Sunday with the aid of cut-and-dried 
questions which answer themselves. The wider 
one's knowledge of the average Sunday-school 
instruction, the more convinced will one be that 
modern pedagogy has not been allowed to fur- 
nish much help in the conduct of Sunday-school 
classes composed of young men and women. 

Too often the case of the adult classes is The case of 
worse. Many schools believe grown men and adult classes 
women are no longer in need of instruction in the 
Bible, and therefore do not attempt to organize 
classes for their benefit. Often when such classes 
are formed their members, men and women who 
think independently and resultfully upon subjects 



126 PRINCIPLES AND IDEALS 

which they confess are of far less importance 
than the Bible, are content to answer questions 
which, excepting those involving some theology 
or philosophy, could be answered as well by 
their children or grandchildren. 
The causes What is the cause of this state of affairs, which 

ofgmdin?:^ we cannot but regard as thoroughly unsatisfactory 
and unworthy of the Book we teach and the 
religion we inculcate ? Two facts furnish the 
chief explanation : First, the Sunday school, as 
was almost of necessity the case, came into 
i. The origin existence as an ungraded school. Our public 
Sunday school schools originated in the same way. This his- 
toric fact is no reflection on the one or the other. 
The world was chaos before it became a cosmos. 
The difference is that, while our public schools 
long ago left behind this original chaotic state, 
the Sunday school has advanced in this respect 
only a little beyond the point from which it 
started. Yet what city school, what country 
school, now groups its pupils according to per- 
sonal friendship, places a given class under the 
same teacher for a period of years, takes up 
each year new subjects to be studied by the 
whole school, without reference to any standard 
curriculum or principle of progress ? 
2. The desire The second fact is the powerful influence of 

for interna- . 

tionai lessons the principle or uniformity, t. e. f the use of the 
same lesson by the whole school and by all 



FOR THE SUNDAY SCHOOL 127 

schools throughout the world. The adoption 
of this principle has had a most powerful influ- 
ence in stimulating the growth of Sunday schools, 
partly by its appeal to sentiment, partly by its 
facilitation of the publication of lesson helps. 
But it has at the same time operated most pow- 
erfully to perpetuate the existence of the un- 
graded Sunday school. Is this condition of things 
to continue ? As we have said, no educational 
question pertaining to the Sunday school at large 
is of more vital importance today than this. 

The issue is primarily between two distinct Two ideas of 
conceptions of what the course of study in a Sun- school" 1 * y ~ 
day school should be. Shall uniformity be the curriculum 
dominant idea of the Sunday school curriculum, 
and shall all the school, and if possible all schools 
the world over, study the same lesson on the 
same day ? Or shall the course of instruction 
be graded, as in all other schools today — graded, 
that is, not only in the treatment of the material,, 
but also in the selection of the material to be 
treated ? 

It is, indeed, possible to consider an inter- a mediating 
mediate plan of graded classes, with uniform P osslbllit y 
lessons graded only in respect to method of in- 
struction. Such a compromise may be necessary 
as a transition step to a genuine graded curricu- 
lum, or may perhaps be found to combine all the 
advantages of uniformity and grading. But the 



iz8 PRINCIPLES AND IDEALS 

real choice must be between the two sharply- 
distinguished ideals. 
Advantages of Now, the advantages of uniformity are un- 

uniformity . 

doubtedly great. It secures unity in the school, 
enabling the teachers to co-operate in the study 
of the lesson, and giving the superintendent an 
opportunity to direct and stimulate the work of 
instruction throughout the school. It secures 
unity in the home, making it possible for the 
father or the mother to assist and guide in the 
study of the lesson at home by the whole family 
from youngest to oldest, and facilitating the 
association of family prayer with the study of 
the Bible in the Sunday school. It immensely 
facilitates the preparation and publication of 
helps on the part of religious papers and in the 
form of quarterlies and lesson papers. It enlists 
on the side of Bible study in the Sunday school 
an immense capital of brains and money. It 
appeals powerfully to sentiment, and secures the 
help of that important ally. The superintendent 
and teacher in every city and hamlet in the land, 
the parent in every home, even the child him- 
self, feels, or may feel, the stimulus and inspira- 
tion of the fact that the prayerful thought of the 
Christian world is turning with him to the portion 
of Scripture assigned for a certain Sunday's 
study. 

But the graded curriculum has its advantages 



FOR THE SUNDAY SCHOOL 129 

too, and they are of the greatest importance Advantages 
from an educational point of view. The selection curriculum 
of material, not on the principle of engaging the 
whole Christian world in the study of a given 
portion at the same time, but on that of giving 
each class or grade of scholars in each school 
the material best adapted to their age and stage 
of advancement, and of so arranging the course 
both in respect to material and method of study 
as to constitute an orderly and progressive course 
of study, is the only method which can make our 
Sunday schools in the best sense of the term edu- 
cational institutions. This method adapts the 
material to the capacity of the scholar, avoiding 
the absurdity of setting children six years old 
to studying the pastoral epistles or the book of 
Revelation. It secures the study of the different 
portions of the Bible in the best order, taking 
into account both the relation of the different 
parts of the Bible to one another and the varying 
needs, capacities, and critical periods in the de- 
velopment of pupils of different ages. It will re- 
sult in giving to each pupil who completes the 
course a connected and related knowledge of the 
whole Bible and of its teaching taken as a whole, 
instead of the distorted and disconnected view 
which the system of uniformity too often gives. 
Which system shall we choose ; or rather, to- 
ward which shall we work ? For we scarcely 



i 3 o PRINCIPLES AND IDEALS 

possess the literature today that makes a choice 
possible at once. The answer will depend in the 
end upon which of two conceptions we hold of 
the Bible and of the purpose of the Sunday 
Choke as school. On the one side, if the Bible is alike in 

affected by our 

conception all its parts, and equally valuable in them all, 

»anhi!£ricai bein g useful sim p!y for the mora l and religious 
record and precepts or theological propositions which can be 
directly culled from it, or gained by a species 
of allegorical interpretation, then the advantages 
of the system of uniformity will probably out- 
weigh in our minds those of a graded educational 
curriculum. For if the loaf is of uniform qual- 
ity through, and equally adapted to child and 
grandparent, why trouble ourselves to select here 
a piece for one class and here another for another? 
But if the Bible is the history of a progressive 
revelation, and if, for this reason, it yields its best 
results alike intellectually and religiously when it 
is studied with due reference to the relation of part 
to part, and to the unfolding of the great divine 
plan and revelation that runs through it, then we 
shall give our suffrages to the graded curriculum 
in preference to the system of uniformity. 

In saying this it is by no means implied that 
the whole curriculum should be dominated by the 
aim to teach history in the chronological order. 
The best starting-point for the study of history is 
not necessarily its earliest event. Nor does aa 



FOR THE SUNDAY SCHOOL 131 

education necessarily begin with the study of his- 
tory. But a graded curriculum will make provision 
both for whatever study of the Bible ought, for 
the younger children, to precede a treatment of 
it from a historical point of view, and for due 
recognition in the later stages of the curriculum 
of the historical character of the book and the 
progressive character of the revelation made in it. 

If, again, we conceive of Sunday-school teach- As affected by 
ing as essentially preaching, that is, primarily ^^^^ 
intended for the purpose of persuading to action, school 
rather than of instructing and so leading in- 
directly to action and the development of char- 
acter, especially if we carry this so far as to hold 
that the more the element of exhortation pre- 
dominates over that of the acquisition of knowl- 
edge the more truly the Sunday school realizes 
its ideal, then we shall see little advantage in 
a graded curriculum, and the real advantages of 
uniformity will lead us to decide for the system 
of which that is the dominating thought. But 
if, on the other hand, we believe that the Sunday 
school is an educational institution, in which the 
moral and spiritual end is supreme, but the 
agency employed is distinctly educational ; if we 
hold that the church ought to have one service 
in which the great moral and religious end of the 
church itself shall be sought distinctly through 
biblical instruction, and that the Sunday school 



1 32 PRINCIPLES AND IDEALS 

shall be that service — then we shall decide that in 
it the best educational methods ought to be em- 
ployed, and that the Sunday school ought to have 
a curriculum, not merely lessons used at the same 
time by all the pupils from the child to the adult. 
On which Which side of this question the church will 

decision win be ultimately take we have no doubt whatever. 
The uniform system has accomplished great re- 
sults for the Sunday school. But for this very 
reason in an increasing number of schools it will 
be the stepping-stone to something still better. 
It is not true that the Bible is of homogeneous 
character throughout, so that all parts of it are 
equally adapted to the instruction of children of 
every age, and that it is of no consequence at 
which end the child begins to learn it. Let it be 
granted that almost any portion of Scripture may 
be made to suggest something that will be useful 
to a pupil of any age ; yet the attempt to use 
certain portions of Scripture for the instruction 
of the younger children, for example, inevitably 
results either in the maltreatment of the Scrip- 
ture or the confusion of the child, and usually in 
both ; while the limitation of the selection to 
those portions which can be used by the whole 
school, including the youngest pupils, means 
such a curtailing of the course of study as inev- 
itably drives the older scholars out of the school. 
Especially harmful is such a method because 



FOR THE SUNDAY SCHOOL 133 

it renders it impossible to give to the pupil any The influence 
connected and true conception of the organic curriculum on 
unity and progressive unfolding of divine revela- thc P u P irs 

J m . . conception of 

tion. A chaotic curriculum issues in chaotic the Bible 
conceptions of the Bible. What would be said of 
the argument that, because it is possible to teach 
something about geometry to any pupil from five 
years to twenty years of age, therefore geometry 
ought to be made in a given year or term the sub- 
ject of study from the top to the bottom of our 
public-school system? And yet almost every argu- 
ment that can be urged for uniform lessons in the 
Sunday school might be urged for such a course 
in the public schools. 

The truth is that the Sunday school is lagging 
far behind the public school in educational 
method, and stands today too nearly on the level 
of the old ungraded district school. If the study 
of the Bible is of less importance than the study 
of mathematics, if religious culture is less necessary 
than secular, then the Sunday school may perhaps 
afford to be at the rear end of the educational pro- 
cession, employing antiquated and ineffective 
methods for sentimental reasons. But if the Bible 
is the book the Christian church believes it to be, 
if religion is a determinative and fundamental 
thing in life, then the Sunday school ought to ap- 
propriate and employ the best known educational 
methods. Not to do so is a crime against re- 



!34 



PRINCIPLES AND IDEALS 



Possible 
lessons for 
various grades 
of school 
cJbildren 



ligion, an insult to the Book. Is it not worth while 
to teach the Bible as well as we teach arithmetic 
and geography, to give as good instruction in the 
things of the soul and the life to come as in those 
of the counting-house and commerce ? Uni- 
formity has its advantages, but they may be 
purchased at too high a price. 

If these contentions are just, some practical 
conclusions follow. In the first place, the inter- 
mediate plan of uniform lessons and graded 
classes and methods is only a compromise, by no 
means the final or ideal system. The most im- 
portant advantages of a graded system are 
secured only by a graded course of study. It is 
not enough simply to have questions of increasing 
difficulty upon the same lesson assigned to differ- 
ent classes. There are some subjects which the 
public schools would not teach pupils of different 
grades. No more should the Sunday school, if 
it would hope to gain the best results, undertake 
to teach in different ways the same lesson to 
infants and adults. The passage that to the 
man or woman might be of greatest interest, 
to the child might be unintelligible, and to a 
less degree the converse is true. The child 
lives in the world of sense. Let him have the 
incomparable stories in which the Hebrew writers 
set forth truth. He will see the lesson which 
the story enforces without any great need of 



FOR THE SUNDAY SCHOOL 135 

mechanical devices. The pupils of the high The case of 
school live in the stimulating air of history h^gh-schooi 6 
and mathematics, of literature and elementary a s e 
science — in a world of new facts and new 
instruction. For them there is the history of the 
Jews and of the church, the study of scriptural 
biography in the light of modern research. It is 
a study, if only it be taught rationally by even a 
moderately informed teacher, quite as interesting 
as that of Greece and Rome, and alive with the 
most practical and vital teaching for the conduct 
of life. Once let such subjects be taught by 
methods followed in the best public schools to 
which the members of the Sunday-school class 
belong, and an end will come to indifference and 
contempt. 

The adult classes present few new difficulties The adult 
when once the general principle be recognized of gra e 
adapting the subject-matter and the method of 
teaching to the pupil. Men and women are in- 
terested in matters that are at once practical and 
abstract. They are not greatly interested in 
stories or facts as such ; they wish to see always 
the relation of doctrine to life and of God 
to man. Such lessons should be chosen as 
meet this demand. While a child may be allowed 
to picture scattered events, or study scattered 
passages, the member of an adult class soon gets 
a distaste by such study and leaves the school. 



1 36 PRINCIPLES AND IDEALS 

Were the lessons more adapted to their wants — 
studies of entire books, of the modern bearing of 
scriptural teachings, of special doctrines, of the 
teachings of different books upon the same sub- 
ject, of history and biography — we should find 
men and women everywhere interested in their 
Bibles, and the adult classes constituting a proper 
proportion of the school. It is not extempora- 
neous exhortation, or vague moralizing, or the 
asking of printed questions that such classes 
want, but intellectual life as virile and as honest 
as that in which their members live during the 
week. 

But, in the second place, as a useful temporary 
expedient and a first step toward a graded course 
of study, there may wisely be adopted a system 
of graded classes in each department of the 
school. Thus, assuming that the school is 
divided into Elementary, Secondary, and Adult 
Divisions, there may be selected for each divi- 
sion a course of lessons based on Scripture 
material adapted to the age of the pupils in that 
division, considered as a whole. Then in each 
division the pupils may be grouped in graded 
classes, all studying the same lesson, each class 
bearing a grade number and composed of pupils 
who can be profitably taught together. In this 
case the principle of uniformity holds within each 
division, as all the pupils are studying the same 



FOR THE SUNDAY SCHOOL 



137 



lesson. At the same time they are so grouped 
that all those of about the same age and acquire- 
ments are taught together. Thus the method of 
teaching may be adapted to each group, and 
pupils may pass from one class to another, by a 
change either of teachers or of teaching methods 
or of both. In the case of young people a 
provisional basis of grading is at hand in that 
of the public schools. To a certain extent all 
grading is necessarily arbitrary, but if classes 
were so arranged that there would be no mix- 
ing of pupils of widely different grades in the 
public schools, they would acquire a unity that 
would more than compensate for the breaking of 
family groups or the separation of acquaintances. 
At the same time the teacher would better under- 
stand the limits and the possibilities of the pupil, 
as well as be aided in finding the common intel- 
lectual ground so indispensable for successful 
teaching. 

The administration of a school graded either Administra- 
on the true basis, the biblical knowledge of the tion ° f * . 

1 o graded Sunday 

pupil, or provisionally by their grade in the pub- school 
lie school, would be ideal only when each depart- 
ment could meet by itself and conduct its 
instruction along the lines it has discovered most 
effective. The adult class may occasionally like to 
share in general exercises that reduce the teach- 
ing period to a few minutes, but, as a rule, they 



138 



PRINCIPLES AND IDEALS 



The question 
of teachers 
and 
promotions 



A second 
step 



require more time for discussion than younger 
classes, and care very little for singing and decla- 
mations and marches. To reduce their time 
causes as much difficulty as the lengthening of 
the teaching period brings to a teacher struggling 
with a class of uneasy boys. But where it is im- 
possible for each department to meet separately 
in its own room or rooms, it will still be possible 
for the essential principle to be observed ; the 
young children, the school children, and the adult 
classes each having their own lesson topic. 

Whether or not pupils should pass up from 
one teacher to another, or whether teachers should 
change their methods as their classes grow older, 
is a question that will probably require answer 
according to particular cases. In some instances 
it is evident that it would be better for the same 
teacher to keep a class, but, in general, there is 
much in favor of pupils passing from one teacher 
to another as they are promoted from one grade 
to another ; for not only does this give the pupil 
a special sense of advance, but it enables teachers 
to become competent in handling pupils of each 
grade. And it is only in effective teaching that 
the efficiency of any school lies. 

A second step, which still falls short of the 
ideal, may also be taken, by some schools at 
least. In one or two cases publishing houses 
have already issued, or arranged from their pre- 



FOR THE SUNDAY SCHOOL 139 

vious publications, the text-books for a complete 
curriculum. This is a hopeful sign for the future 
and a help for the immediate present. If any 
school should not find these series altogether 
satisfactory it is still possible for a discreet com- 
mittee to select from the publications of various 
publishers the material for such a graded cur- 
riculum as it may judge adapted to the needs of 
the school. This plan has already proved suc- 
cessful in a number of our best schools. 

But it must be admitted that the ideal litera- The duty of 
ture is yet to be produced. There is not yet ^^licai 
even agreement as to the precise character of the scholars: 
course of study itself. We cannot spring at once currkuium 
into a perfectly organized curriculum. If the Sun- £ orthe , 

r J & a Sunday school 

day school ought to seek the high end which 
belongs to it in common with every other agency 
of the church, the creation and development of 
Christian character, by distinctly educational 
means, and those the best, then to someone there 
belongs the duty of framing an intelligently con- 
structed curriculum for the study of the Bible in 
the Sunday school, and to someone that of pre- 
paring suitable literature for the study and teach- 
ing of it in accordance with such a curriculum. 
If no one is wise enough to do this to-day, if we 
do not even know what the curriculum ought to 
be, then we must begin still farther back and 
take up the study of the problem and the collec- 



140 PRINCIPLES AND IDEALS 

And also of tion of the data which will enable us to construct 
at least a provisional curriculum. Of that great 
capital of money and brains and spiritual zeal 
which is now going into the preparation of a lit- 
erature which, however able and scholarly and 
devout, is based on an antiquated educational 
method, is there not some part that can be 
devoted to the elevation of Sunday-school instruc- 
tion, to bringing it up at least to the level of our 
none too perfect public-school system? 



CHAPTER II. 

THE CONSTRUCTION OF A GRADED 
CURRICULUM. 

To say that the Sunday school ought to have a Theconstmc- 
graded curriculum is one thing ; to show what graded 
that curriculum should be is another and a more curriculum 

. r* . must at 

difficult task. One is compelled to work here present be 
almost without precedent or experience, and tentatlve 
must fall back on general principles and analogies 
derived from the secular education, where a cur- 
riculum has already been worked out, aided by 
what little experience has already been had. 
Any attempts at the shaping of a course of study 
for the Sunday school must be regarded as ten- 
tative, and will undoubtedly be revised by ex- 
perience. Nevertheless it seems necessary to 
make the attempt. 

What should such a course of study aim to what shall be 
accomplish? And what are the principles on o^whfchV 8 
which it should be constructed? is based? 

Again we must recur to the fundamental 
proposition that, while the ultimate aim of the 
Sunday school is religious — the creation and de- 
velopment of Christian character in the pupils — 
its proximate aim is educational, being chiefly 

141 



142 PRINCIPLES AND IDEALS 

the impartation to the pupil of true and thorough 
knowledge of the Bible. If this is the right 
conception of the purpose of the Sunday school, 
then it follows that the curriculum should be so 

The principle constructed that the instruction given to pupils 
of each grade should not only be adapted both 
to the intellectual advancement and to the reli- 
gious needs of the pupils of that grade, but that 
it should contribute in the highest degree both 
to the steady acquisition of a thorough knowl- 
edge of the Bible and to the creation and devel- 
opment of Christian character. 

This means that the Sunday school should 
have a curriculum of biblical study as thoroughly 
graded and constructed on as precise pedagogi- 
cal principles and as thorough psychological 
knowledge as the best curriculum which has 
been devised or can be devised for the secular 
schools. 

The Bible But while thus characterizing the curriculum 

and the ° 

curriculum of the Sunday school as biblical, we cannot insist 
that it shall confine itself absolutely to the Bible. 
Throughout the course knowledge derived from 
the Bible, in order that it may serve the religious 
purpose of the school, must be set in relation to 
life. On the other hand, contributory instruction 
may legitimately be drawn from sources outside 
the Bible ; from the pupil's own experience and 
observation ; from those of the teacher ; and from 



FOR THE SUNDAY SCHOOL 143 

the still larger experience recorded in history 
and reflected in literature. In the Sunday school, 
all of these occupy a place second in importance 
to that of the Bible, but in them all divine truth 
is disclosed and may be brought to light. All of 
them, therefore, have their value and use, espe- 
cially as enabling the pupil to feel the corrobora- 
tive effect of concurrent testimony as regards 
religious and moral truth. 

The extent to which these contributory How h \ sha11 

J the curricu- 

sources of instruction should be employed and i U m recognize 
the explicitness with which the application of ^? * a ~ 
truth to life and duty should be pointed out will 
vary greatly in different parts of the course. In 
general, the younger the pupil, the more neces- 
sary is it to bring truth into clear and explicit 
relation to his life ; the older he is, the more 
safely and wisely may he be left to effect this 
connection for himself, In the kindergarten it 
is especially necessary to set the truth, whether 
drawn from the Bible or from the revelation in 
nature, in relation with the actual life of the 
child. Yet here also the biblical element ought 
always to be present. The kindergarten teach- 
ers of a Sunday school should bear in mind 
that they are something more than entertainers; 
something more than inculcators of truth in 
general. However much they may employ 
things and events familiar to the child as 



i 4 4 



PRINCIPLES AND IDEALS 



The curricu- 
lum to be 
selective 



The elective 
system in 
colleges 



suggesting the truth or its application, the truths 
which they have to impress are those which are 
set forth in the Bible. As far as kindergarten 
methods permit, the child should be brought 
face to face with these truths. 

But shall the curriculum of a school cover the 
whole Bible and the whole field of biblical study? 
Perhaps this would be the ideal. But no one who 
has even an approximately adequate notion of 
the breadth and depth of the biblical books, and 
of the immensity of the task of interpreting them, 
first as units and then as successive and con- 
nected outcroppings of a century-long process of 
divine revelation, can for a moment dream that 
the Sunday-school curriculum, with its one short 
exercise a week, can cover this great field. The 
curriculum must proceed on a principle of selec- 
tion. 

And right here the development of the college 
curriculum may furnish us a helpful suggestion. 
As the field of modern knowledge has grown and 
new subjects have knocked for admission at the 
door of the college curriculum, the colleges, as a 
rule, have not found it expedient either wholly 
to exclude them or to make room for them by 
excluding the older occupants. Room has been 
found for them by introducing the principle of 
election. The advantages of this method need 
be no more than hinted at here, some of them 



FOR THE SUNDAY SCHOOL 145 

more marked in the case of the Sunday-school The elective 
than of the college. In the first place, the intro- Sunday Tchooi 
duction of a wide range of subjects is an advan- 
tage even to those who are compelled to limit 
themselves to the same amount of work which 
they would otherwise have done. The necessity 
of choosing between different courses, or the 
knowledge that others are pursuing a different 
course from that which he is himself pursuing, 
broadens the pupil's horizon and in a valuable, 
though superficial, way increases his knowledge 
of the field of Bible study. Under an elective 
system, again, it is possible to adapt instruction 
more perfectly to individual needs. And, finally, 
it permits the student who will remain in the 
school year after year to be always moving for- 
ward to new subjects and fields of study, and by 
this very fact tends to hold him in the school 
when otherwise he would drift away, feeling that 
he had gained all that the school had to give him. 

But great as are the advantages of an elective Prescribed 
system, the Sunday-school curriculum cannot, of 
course, be elective throughout. Aside from the 
fact that the majority of the pupils who have not 
reached adult age are quite unprepared to make 
a wise selection of courses, it is evident that there 
are some fundamental things which all need to 
learn and which must be learned as the basis of 
more advanced elective study. 



146 



PRINCIPLES AND IDEALS 



The testi- 
mony of the 
uniform 
system at 
this point 



General 
conclusion : 
The course to 
be partly 
prescribed 
and partly 
elective 



At this point one may well utilize the expe- 
rience gained under a system of uniform lessons. 
For a generation Christendom has been instruct- 
ing its children and youth in what earnest men 
have designated as material that should be known 
by all Christians. The system, pedagogically con- 
sidered, is exposed to many objections. But, in 
that it has demanded that all should know some- 
thing, and in so far as it has required that this 
something should include the essential elements 
of the biblical material, it points the way for 
further progress. Whatever failures may have 
followed the attempt to make this system of uni- 
form lessons permanent rather than introduc- 
tory to something better, its efficiency and effects 
at this point enforce the desirability of seeing 
that sooner or later all pupils study the same 
lessons. 

From such considerations as these it results, 
then, that the first part of the course must be 
prescribed, the latter part elective. Where the 
line should be drawn may be matter of doubt, 
but perhaps no better arrangement can be made 
than this : for the year corresponding to the ele- 
mentary and secondary divisions of the secular 
education — that is, approximately from the sixth 
to the eighteenth year of the pupil's life — let the 
course be prescribed ; for the subsequent years 
let it be elective. 



FOR THE SUNDAY SCHOOL 147 

What, now, shall be the governing principle Principles 
of the prescribed course? Four factors must ^cribed 
be taken into account : the formative and devel- course 
oping character of the years during which the 
pupil is pursuing this course ; the fundamental 
principles of biblical study as determined by 
the nature of the Bible ; the fact that the pre- 
scribed courses are all that will be pursued in 
common by all the pupils, and that they must 
therefore serve as the basis of the future diver- 
sified work; the certainty of spiritual crises in the 
life of the pupil during the years he is pursuing 
the prescribed courses. 

As respects the first point, it must be remem- The progress 

• r «i in the secular 

bered that the majority of the pupils who pur- education 
sue the prescribed course will be in the same of the pupUs 
year advancing through the elementary and 
secondary schools in their secular education. 
In the latter part of this period they will be 
pupils in the high school, and their course will 
include the study of history, in all cases the 
history of the United States, in a large propor- 
tion of cases that of some other country also, as 
of England or of Egypt, Greece, and Rome. 

As respects the second point, we have en- The character 
deavored to show in previous chapters of this 
book that the deepest insight into and broadest 
outlook upon the meaning of the Bible, the 
truest conception of the basis of its authority, is 



148 PRINCIPLES AND IDEALS 

The necessity to be gained by a thoroughly historical study of 

of progress . T , . . . . . . . . . . . . 

in the it. It is through the biblical history in the 

curriculum broadest sense of the term that the divine reve- 
lation is most clearly revealed and most clearly 
seen to be divine. 

But if this be so, then, in view of the third 
consideration named above, the prescribed course 
should culminate, intellectually speaking, in a 
broad historical view of the Bible. 

Yet it is equally manifest that it cannot be- 
gin where it ends. Facts in isolation must pre- 
cede facts in relation. And the work of the 
elementary division must be in no small measure 
the acquisition by the pupil of those facts w r hich 
in the latter portion of his prescribed course are 
to form the basis of a true historical study. Still 
more needful is it to remember that in these 
earlier years the child is susceptible to religious 
impressions and that the instruction should be 
such as to lodge in his mind, or rather impress 
on his heart, the elemental principles of religion 
and conduct. We come, therefore, to the conclu- 
sion that the prescribed course, covering the ten 
to fourteen years of the elementary and second- 
ary divisions — approximately the years from five 
to eighteen in thepupil's life — should begin with 
the simpler stories of the Bible and the more ele- 
mentary truths of biblical teaching : it should 
move toward and aim at the acquisition of a sys- 



FOR THE SUNDAY SCHOOL 149 

tematic knowledge of biblical history, including 
in this term the history and interpretation both 
of events and teachings. 

The fourth fact, that of the recurrence of spir- Spiritual crises 

demand 

itual crises, demands that the subjects of study appropriate 
should be adjusted to the stages of religious lessons 
growth. It is here that one especially realizes 
that the boy and girl, quite as much as the mere 
child, is to be considered. Further, it must never 
be forgotten that moral and religous growth is 
possible only as a result of successive deci- 
sions ; and in the great majority of cases such 
decisions are accompanied with no small intro- 
spection, and often with actual moral struggle. 
The psychology of religion enables us to treat 
this matter with such precision that conversion 
has come to have a distinct pedagogical signifi- 
cance. Speaking generally, these crises come in 
the periods of early adolescence and of early 
maturity. While certain individual experiences 
will always prove exceptions to this statement, 
the curriculum here, as always, must conform to 
what statistics show to be general tendencies. 
The lessons intended for the years in which such 
crises may be expected should be especially 
adapted to move pupils to the right spiritual de- 
cisions. In the case of boys and girls, " j the 
hindrances to the correct decision spring less 
from doubt than from indifference to ideals. 



ISO 



PRINCIPLES AND IDEALS 



General 
scheme : 

I. Kinder- 
garten 



2. The next 
three years 



Nothing will overcome such indifference like the 
appeal made by life. Let the lessons, therefore, 
be chiefly biographical. In the second period of 
crises, that of the maturing life of the youth, the 
difficulties are pretty generally due to actual 
moral deadness or to intellectual doubts. Clearly 
for such a period biographical lessons should be 
supplemented by those setting forth biblical 
teaching. Between these two periods of crises 
the lessons may most fitly give the pupils ma- 
terials that shall develop a life openly Christian 
or inculcate such truths as will make more cer- 
tain the decision for Christian profession in the 
second period of crises. 

These considerations suggest the following 
general scheme for a graded curriculum : 

1. In the kindergarten the instruction must of 
course be viva voce. The aim of the teacher 
must be to lodge in the hearts of the little chil- 
dren some of the elemental principles of morality 
and religion. Obviously this cannot be done 
abstractly. Stories from the Bible and the 
children's own experiences will serve as media 
by which to convey or suggest the truth, and 
the child should at once be given opportunity to 
express in play or picture work his idea of the 
truth which has been presented to him. 

2. In the first three years after the kinder- 
garten the aim should be to lodge in the memory 



FOR THE SUNDAY SCHOOL 151 

of the child such stories from the Bible as will 2. Stories for 
interest and profit him, and certain of the choicer 
sentences or verses of the Bible, such as will 
make upon his mind now an impression of spirit- 
ual truth, and will be treasured in the memory in 
after life. Pictures and other illustrative appa- 
ratus must be freely used, and all the teaching 
must be skilfully brought into connection with 
the child's own life. To this end stories from 
other literature than the Bible and from life 
may be freely used by the teacher. The reli- 
gious and ethical aim must be constantly kept 
in mind along with the purpose of storing the 
pupil's memory. 

The plan upon which these stories should be 
arranged deserves more careful study than it has 
yet received. An obvious division would be to 
devote one year to stories from the life of Jesus, 
a second to stories from the Old Testament, and 
a third to stories from the lives of the apostles. 
But it is probable that a topical arrangement on 
the basis of the ethical and religious ideas to be 
inculcated would be better, and that more ac- 
count should be taken of the seasons of the year 
and the festivals of the church, such as Christ- 
mas and Easter, than a purely biographical 
grouping would permit. Neither the chrono- 
logical nor the biographical motive appeals very 
strongly to pupils at this age. Nor, indeed, is it 



152 PRINCIPLES AND IDEALS 

necessary to compel them to arrange details in 
any schematic order. 
3. The study 3. The child who has in the preceding three 
as a library years heard many of the stories from the lips of 
the teacher, and has, it is to be hoped, had many 
of them read to him at home, has presumably by 
this time learned to read for himself. It is time r 
therefore, that he should begin to learn some- 
thing about the books of the Bible, as a prepa- 
ration to the study of them from the printed page. 
A year may very profitably be given to the study 
of the Bible as a collection of books — a library. 
The children should learn from specimens of each 
kind the different kinds of books which the Bible 
contains, as, for example, books of history and 
stories, of law, of sermons, of poetry and wis- 
dom, of letters, and of vision. Home readings 
from books of each class may be assigned, the 
co-operation of the parents being secured. Pas- 
sages of Scripture notable for their beauty or 
content, such as the Ten Commandments, the 
Beatitudes, choice psalms, sayings of Jesus and 
the apostles, should be committed to memory. 
The names of the books of the Bible may be 
learned by classes and in the order in which they 
are printed in the Bible, with the intent that the 
children may be able to turn readily to any one 
of them. The primary and controling aim should 
be to give the pupil a knowledge of the varied 



FOR THE SUNDAY SCHOOL 153 

contents of the biblical library, and of their 
arrangement in the Bible, and above all to give 
him a genuine interest in them which will impel 
him to further study of them and prepare him 
for it. 

4. The pupil who in the kindergarten and the 4- Biographi- 
first three years after leaving it has had lodged 

in his memory many of the stories of the Bible, 
yet disconnectedly, without reference to their 
historical order, and who has spent a year in 
gaining a general knowledge of the contents of 
the whole biblical library, including, perhaps with 
some special emphasis, the books of history and 
story, may now profitably pass on to biographical 
study. In such study the unit is no longer the 
story, detached and isolated, but the life of the 
individual, the patriarch, prophet, king, apostle, 
or Christ. The pupil being now able to read, 
the books of the Bible should themselves be 
his chief text-book, whatever aids to the use of 
them it may be expedient to put into his hands. 
This portion of the curriculum may perhaps also 
occupy three years, and should be so taught as 
to result in the dedication of the young life to 
God. 

5. At this point in the curriculum the pupil, 5. The study 
having had three years of stories, a year in a £ oks 1C 
general survey of the books of the Bible, and 

three years of biographical study, may properly 



154 PRINCIPLES AND IDEALS 

take up the continuous and more thorough study 
of single biblical books. Three years may be 
given to this kind of study. The aim should be 
to give the pupil an intelligent idea of the con- 
tent and, as far as he is prepared for it, of the 
structure and character of certain biblical books. 
These books are the sources of the history which 
he is to take up in the succeeding four years. It 
being impossible to study thoroughly the whole 
of the literature, typical examples should be 
selected for study. But that the pupil may never- 
theless gain a genuine, even though general, 
knowledge of the content of the whole Bible, 
there should be laid out for him a three-years' 
course of reading, covering all the books of the 
Bible not taken up for thorough study. 
6. Biblical 6, In the last four years of the prescribed 

course the aim should be to give the student a 
connected idea of biblical history, including both 
events and teaching, and these in their mutual 
relations ; in short, a comprehensive survey of 
the history of biblical revelation, from the first 
recorded beginnings in the most ancient times 
down to the end of the apostolic age. 

This course of fourteen years might be accom- 
plished by the brightest pupils in somewhat less 
time. Each class pursuing its work independently 
might go rapidly or slowly, according to ability; 
and individual pupils might carry on two courses 



history 



FOR THE SUNDAY SCHOOL 155 

at once, thus shortening the course to twelve, or 
even ten, years. 

7. When the pupil has completed his pre- 7- Elective 

courses in 

scribed course, covering the twelve years or so of the adult 
the elementary and secondary divisions, he will lvlslon 
pass into the adult division, where elective 
courses, sufficient to occupy him the rest of 
his life, may easily be offered, if only compe- 
tent teachers can be provided. All the books 
of the Bible may be taken up for literary and in- 
terpretative study; the several periods of bibli- 
cal history may be studied in greater detail than 
before; the whole field of biblical theology and 
biblical ethics is open; and there seems to be no 
valid reason why courses in applied ethics, per- 
sonal and sociological, as well as courses in the 
history of the church, ancient and modern, espe- 
cially the history of missions, should not be 
offered here also. 

These seven propositions yield something like 
the following 

CURRICULUM. 
I. ELEMENTARY DIVISION. 

i. The Kindergarten. 

2. Three years of stories, pictures, and verses, the chief Curriculum 
basis of grouping being probably that of the ethical and 
religious ideas to be inculcated. 

3. One year of general study of the books of the Bible : 
Elementary biblical introduction, accompanied by read- 



156 PRINCIPLES AND IDEALS 

ing of appointed portions and the memorizing of selected 
passages. 1 
4. Three years of biographical study. 
Fifth year: The life of Jesus. 
Sixth year: Lives of Old Testament heroes. 
Seventh year: The lives of the apostles. 

II. SECONDARY DIVISION. 

1. Three years in the study of the books of the Bible: 
Eighth year: First half — 1 Samuel. 

Second half — The gospel of Mark. 
Ninth year: First half — Isaiah, chaps. 1-12. 

Second half — Acts, chaps. 1-12. 
Tenth year: First half — The Psalms. 

Second half — 1 Peter; Acts, chaps. 

13-28. 

2. Four years of biblical history: 

Eleventh year: Old Testament history begun. 
Twelfth year: Old Testament history completed. 
Thirteenth year: The life and teachings of Jesus. 
Fourteenth year: The history and teachings of the apos- 
tolic age. 

III. ADULT DIVISION. 

Elective courses: 

1. The interpretation and literary study of the several 
books of the Bible. 

2. Biblical ethics and theology. 

3. Biblical history, more detailed than before. 

4. Church history. 

5. Christian doctrine. 

x For a paper showing the examination successfully passed by 
a class of boys and girls about ten years of age, who had spent a 
year on the course, see Appendix. 



CHAPTER III. 

EXAMINATIONS IN THE SUNDAY SCHOOL. 
Ought there to be examinations in the Sunday Adva . nta ? es of 

J examinations 

school? Some will certainly answer with a in the Sunday 
prompt negative. But if not, why not? Do not 
the same reasons which lead to the use of exam- 
inations in other schools suggest the employment 
of them in the Sunday school? An examination 
can be said to serve three useful ends : First, if 
rightly conducted, an examination tends to unify 
and organize the pupil's knowledge. It helps to 
bring into one connected whole what was before 
more or less fragmentary and disconnected in his 
mind. Second, it serves as a stimulus to the 
pupil to do thorough work. Almost without his 
recognizing it, the fact that he is to pass an exam- 
ination upon his work at the end of the quarter or 
course leads the pupil to make a greater effort to 
learn thoroughly the successive lessons. Third, it 
helps the teacher or examiner to decide what work 
the student should next take up ; in other words, 
it is a criterion for promotion. Now, all these 
results are as desirable in the Sunday school as 
in any other school, if only it be recognized that 
it is the business of the Sunday school really to 

157 



158 PRINCIPLES AND IDEALS 

teach and of the pupil really to learn. Indeed, 
the examination is more needed in the Sun- 
day school than in the public school. Just be- 
cause the public school can use certain methods 
which are impracticable in the Sunday school 
for securing faithful work day by day, it could 
conceivably more easily than the Sunday school 
dispense with examinations. Once let it be 
clearly recognized that the Sunday school exists 
to give real instruction in the Bible, and to secure 
real study and learning on the part of the pupil, 
and it will be seen that, so far from there being 
less reason for examinations in Sunday schools 
than in other schools, there is, in fact, more 
reason for them. 
Objections But it will be objected that the examination 

is precisely that feature of the public schools 
which is most repugnant to the pupil, and that 
the introduction of the system into the Sunday 
school will at once create a dislike for the Sun- 
day school which will drive pupils away from it. 
Undoubtedly, a system of examinations might be 
introduced into a Sunday school in such a way 
as to antagonize and repel some pupils, and even 
to lead some to leave the school. But we venture 
the assertion — and we speak from experience — 
that, with a reasonable degree of discretion and 
skill, very few pupils, if any, need be lost, and 
many will be gained. The best pupils will re- 



FOR THE SUNDAY SCHOOL 159 

joice in the change, because of the consequent 
improvement in the character of the work ; many 
pupils will be held in the school, as "they were 
before, by parental authority or other influence 
unaffected by the system of instruction ; and wis- 
dom in the manner of introducing the examina- 
tions will prevent the driving away of even those 
who would not be held by these other influences. 

How, then, shall examinations be introduced, Methods of 
and of what character shall they be? In the 
larger schools it will be found desirable to appoint 
an Examiner, to have special charge of the whole 
matter. He will need to study the situation, and The . 

Examiner 

to use wisdom and discretion both in introducing 
examinations and in conducting them. It will be 
necessary for him always to keep in close touch 
with the teachers, both that he may adapt the 
examinations to the instruction given and that 
he may know with what difficulties the system 
has to contend. In the smaller schools the 
superintendent or secretary may also serve as 
examiner. At first, at least, the examinations 
may be made optional, no pupil being obliged to 
take them, but all being encouraged to do so, 
and honorable mention being made of those who 
take the examination and pass it successfully. 
This honorable mention may be made in the form 
of an announcement in the report of the secretary 
or examiner, read before the school, or by post- 



160 PRINCIPLES AND IDEALS 

ing a bulletin where all can see it. The exami- 
nation should not cover a long period, probably 
not to exceed three months, though when the 
system is fairly under way an annual examination 
might be given for those who are willing to take 
it. If the lessons call for written work each 
week, the work thus done week by week should 
be taken into account in the examination. The 
quarterly examination should not be a mere test 
of memory. Its educational purpose should be 
distinctly kept in mind. If the questions are 
rightly framed, so as to constitute a real review 
of the main features of the quarter's work, they 
may very properly be put into the hands of the 
pupils on one Sunday, to be returned with the 
answers a week later, the pupils being instructed 
to make use of the Bible and any other accessible 
sources of information, personal help only being 
excluded. 
Results to be Such an examination, announced with reason- 

expec e able skill and a clear statement of the real reasons 

which justify it, and conducted with wisdom and 
fairness, will not only prove no obstacle to the 
attendance of the scholars, but can scarcely fail 
to stimulate both teachers and pupils to do better 
work, and thus to increase the efficiency of the 
school in its work of instruction. 

Have you an examination in your school ? If 
not, why not? If the grade of your work is so 



FOR THE SUNDAY SCHOOL 161 

low as to make examinations impracticable, does A question 

i i t t ^ -it mi *° r the reader 

not that work need elevating? If so, will not 
an examination help to elevate it ? Will you ap- 
point the best man or woman you have to act as 
examiner, and announce an optional examination 
on the next quarter's work? 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE ORGANIZATION OF THE GRADED 
SCHOOL. 

Organization MARK HOPKINS at One end Of the log, SOme VOUth- 
necessitated 

by growth ful Garfield at the other — this would constitute 
in embryo a college. So one teacher filled with 
knowledge, zeal, and skill, and one pupil, would 
constitute a Sunday school. Yet if the fame of 
Mark Hopkins should draw to the log other 
youthful Garfields, a score, a hundred, a thou- 
sand, it would be found necessary to do what 
our American colleges and universities have 
done — appoint a president and other administra- 
tive officers, deans, and secretaries and treasurers, 
and work out little by little a plan of organiza- 
tion which would enable the teacher and the 
pupil, for whose teaching and learning all else 
exists, to do their work most effectively and suc- 
cessfully. So in the Sunday school, as the one 
teacher becomes twenty and the one pupil a hun- 
dred or five hundred or a thousand, differentia- 
tion of service becomes necessary, and conse- 
quently a more or less complex organization of 
the school. What shall be the form of that 
organization? 

162 



FOR THE SUNDAY SCHOOL 163 

In answering this question, two principles, sim P licit y 
mutually corrective, need to be kept in mind : 
First, the principle of simplicity: no divisions of 
pupils, no office or officer, except to meet a 
real and legitimate need of the school ; no 
machinery, except to further the central educa- 
tional and religious purpose of the school. And, 
second, the principle of completeness : every Com P leteness 
legitimate function of the school provided for, 
with some one person charged with special re- 
sponsibility for it. These principles presuppose 
a definite conception of the purpose for which 
the school exists ; and if they are followed, the 
organization of the school will simply reflect that 
purpose and further its realization. The com- 
plexity of organization will vary with the size of 
the school and the completeness with which it is 
doing the work of a school ; with the size, be- 
cause in the small school — to take an extreme 
case, in the school of one teacher and one class 
— various functions will be combined in one per- 
son or even lapse altogether because of the 
absence of any need to co-ordinate the work of 
the different parts of the school ; with the com- 
pleteness of its work, because only functions 
actually performed or to be undertaken legiti- 
mately call for offices and officers. 

But that we may take a broad and reasonably 
complete view of the matter, let us assume a 



1 64 PRINCIPLES AND IDEALS 

Organization l ar pr e school and one that is undertaking all its 

as required by ° m 

diverse age proper forms of service. There are two points 
of pupils Q £ v j ew f ro m which to look at such a school : 

first, from that of the diversity of the pupils in 
age and maturity of mind ; second, from that of 
the varied forms of service which the school aims 
to render its pupils. Consider it first from the 
point of view of age of pupils. In a school 
which includes pupils of all ages, from the little 
children in the kindergarten to men and women 
of mature age, it is self-evident that there must 
be division of the school by, so to speak, hori- 
zontal planes. The teaching and exercises of 
worship which appeal to the youngest children 
are not suitable for adults, and the converse is 
even more emphatically true. Into how many 
divisions a school should be divided is a ques- 
tion to which no absolute answer can be returned, 
but probably wherever possible there should be 
The Divisions a t least three : The Elementary Division, includ- 
ing pupils to about the fourth or sixth grade ; 
the Secondary Division, including pupils from 
the fifth or seventh to the twelfth grade ; and 
the Adult Division, including all above the 
twelfth grade. To these three it might be ex- 
pedient in some cases to add two others by sep- 
arating the Kindergarten from the Elementary 
Division and organizing a Home Division sep- 
arate from the Adult Division. 



FOR THE SUNDAY SCHOOL 165 

Now, the character of the work in each of Principals 

,,...- . .. rr . , of divisions 

these several divisions is so differentiated from 
that of the others that it is expedient to place 
at the head of each division a Principal, who 
shall have general oversight of and responsibility 
for the conduct of the work in that division, 
selecting and appointing teachers, filling vacan- 
cies, and conducting the public exercises of the 
division. 

On the other hand, the diversity of the kinds organization 
of service which the school seeks to render to asre q ulredb y 

diversity or 

all its pupils, and the necessity that all the work function 
of the school in each of these lines shall proceed 
upon some intelligent and consistent plan, sug- 
gest the desirability of a division of the work of 
the school vertically, so to speak, and the ap- 
pointment of officers who shall severally concern 
themselves with the different forms of service 
which the school seeks to render This would Directors 
call for Directors of Instruction, of Religious Life, 
of Benevolence, of Public Exercises, and of the 
Library. Of course, all these Directors must 
work in harmony both with one another and, 
with the Principals of the several divisions. 

It would be the duty of the Director of The Director 
Instruction to inform himself as fully and as intel- of Instruction 
ligently as possible on the whole problem of the 
curriculum from the kindergarten to the elective 
classes of the adult division, and to work out a 



1 66 PRINCIPLES AND IDEALS 

practicable curriculum for his school. He must 
become acquainted with the existing literature 
so as to be prepared to recommend the very best 
available material, and adjust the theoretical cur- 
riculum to the possibilities of the literature. In 
consultation with the teachers and principals of 
divisions he would be called upon to plan and 
introduce a system of examinations and pro- 
motions, all the time carefully keeping his finger 
on the pulse of the school that he might make 
haste slowly and prudently. In this service he 
would probably need in any large school the 
assistance of an Examiner, who would arrange for 
the preparation of the questions, receive the 
papers and have them read, keep the record of 
each pupil's examinations and promotions. It 
would be the duty of the Director of Instruction 
to assist the Principals in the selection of suitable 
teachers, to devise means for training teachers, 
and perhaps himself to conduct a normal class. 
In a church which has a "teaching minister" — 
of whom we speak in a subsequent chapter — the 
office of Director of Instruction would naturally 
fall to him. 
The Director The Director of Public Exercises would be 
Exercises called upon to study the problem of the best order 
of exercises — ritual or liturgy — for each division 
of the school, always working in harmony with 
the several Principals. To him would fall, of 



FOR THE SUNDAY SCHOOL 167 

course, the general oversight of the music of the 
school and the chief responsibility for rendering 
it in the highest degree conducive to the great re- 
ligious and educational aim of the school. Such 
a Director might or might not share with the 
Principals the actual conduct of the public exer- 
cises. In any case, his great duty would be to 
give intelligent oversight and guidance to this 
important part of the work of the school. 

The Director of Benevolence would be charged T j^ Director 

" of Benevo- 

with the duty of keeping the benevolent work of knee 
the school on a high educational level, on suitable 
occasions expounding to the different divisions 
of the school the principles which underlie true 
and wise beneficence, and suggesting objects to 
which the pupils might give or the ratio of division 
between different objects. The task of actually 
receiving and disbursing funds would, of course, 
fall to the Treasurer, whose office is thus in a sense 
in the department of the Director of Benevolence. 

The Director of Religious Life would naturally T ^ Rector 

•'of Religious 

be the pastor or assistant pastor of the church. Life 
He could hardly acquire by appointment to this 
office any new duties, but the fact of his appoint- 
ment would at the same time emphasize the re- 
ligious purpose of the school and give to the 
pastor a recognized relation to the school. His 
duty would, of course, be to stimulate, encourage, 
direct, and assist the teachers and Principals in 



i68 



PRINCIPLES AND IDEALS 



The Director 
of the Library 
and the 
Secretary 



The Superin- 
tendent 



making the school religiously effective. A weekly- 
meeting for members of the secondary division , for 
example, conducted by him might be one of the 
regular appointments of that division. Class 
meetings might be held, pastor and teacher co- 
operating. But it is not necessary to enter into 
details at this point. The essential matter is that 
the pastor, as the special representative of the 
central religious purpose of the school, shall have 
a recognized place in its organization, co-oper- 
ating with all other officers in bringing about the 
great end of the school. 

Of the work of the Director of the Library 
and of that of the Chief Secretary, with tried assist- 
ants for the several divisions of the school, where 
such are needed, it is not necessary to speak at 
length. In each of the divisions valuable service 
may be rendered by such officers if they bring to 
their tasks an intelligent recognition of and sym- 
pathy with the central aim of the school and skill 
in adapting means to end. 

Finally, there is needed a President or Super- 
intendent, whose duties would be analogous to 
those of the president of any institution or enter- 
prise, including the general oversight of the 
school, the co-ordination of the work of its 
several divisions and of the several fields of 
effort, the stimulation and encouragement of all 
the workers, and the planning of new work and 
advance movements. 



FOR THE SUNDAY SCHOOL 169 

But, it may be objected, will not so elaborate Organization 
an organization crush out the life of the school? ^SSdSo3L 
That depends upon the school. If it consists of 
one teacher and one pupil on a log in the woods, 
the teacher will not be helped to do his work by- 
electing himself to half a dozen directorships, 
and he will find no occasion to create five divisions 
of the school according to the age of the pupils. 
Nor in a small country school which has but one 
room and in which a half-dozen persons must fill 
all the offices and do all the teaching, will it be 
expedient to apply in detail a plan such as we 
have described. Even in this case, however, it 
may perhaps not be without helpfulness for those 
on whose shoulders the responsibility for the 
school rests to recognize the diversified character 
of the work they are undertaking, and quietly to 
parcel among themselves the responsibility for 
the oversight of the different lines of work which 
every school should undertake to do. Thus they 
might say to one teacher, "Do you, besides 
teaching your class, give special thought to the 
improving of the general exercises of the school, 
to the end that they may be in the highest degree 
religiously helpful; " to another, "Do you think 
how we can best train our pupils in benevolence; " 
to the Superintendent, " Do you think how we 
can all improve our teaching ; " and to the pastor, 
" Do you co-operate with us in leading our pupils 



170 



PRINCIPLES AND IDEALS 



Organization 
as applied to 
large schools 



Combination 
of offices 



to faith in Christ and developing their religious 
lives." 

Yet it is especially for the larger schools, hav- 
ing pupils of all ages and a large force of workers 
in the church to draw from, that such an organi- 
zation as that which we have described will be 
possible or advantageous. In many such cases 
we are persuaded some such plan will be in every 
way expedient and helpful. The very diversity 
of offices will keep before the mind of all the 
various ends which the school seeks to achieve, 
or rather the various means by which it seeks to 
achieve its one great end. The division of respon- 
sibility will secure more concentrated attention 
to the problems which arise in the different fields 
of the school's work, and will often serve to call 
into the service of the school ability which is 
unemployed for lack of a task to which it is 
exactly adapted. 

Even a school of moderate size might find 
substantially this form of organization advanta- 
geous, only reducing the number of officers, if 
not of offices, by assigning two or more of the 
latter to one person. Thus in some cases the 
pastor might be Director of Instruction as well as 
of Religious Life; the Superintendent might also 
hold the office of Director of Public Exercises, 
if he had taste and abilitv in that direction. 
Such combinations should, however, be personal ; 



FOR THE SUNDAY SCHOOL 171 

that is, if the same person is elected to two or 
more offices, it should be because he is the best 
person for each of these, not because it has been 
decided beforehand to combine these two offices 
as mere offices. 

Such an organization involves, of course, some £ an e er: 

° How avoided 

danger of disintegration and the possibility of 
some persons working at cross-purposes. But 
this danger is common to all large enterprises 
involving division of responsibility, and can be 
overcome by wise generalship on the part of the 
head of the school and unselfish devotion to its 
high aims on the part of all the co-operating 
workers. In at least one school of which we have 
knowledge these dangers have been avoided and 
the school, under this form of administration for 
years, has in that period grown greatly in num- 
bers, and become greatly strengthened in all 
those elements that give a Sunday school efficiency 
and success. 



CHAPTER V. 



The Sunday- 
school 
library as 
popularly 
conceived 



THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL LIBRARY. 

Unless we mistake, Sunday-school libraries have 
commonly been advocated on the ground that it 
is necessary to furnish the members of the school 
with innocuous and pious reading. At the same 
time the conventional idea of Sunday-school 
books is a caricature. Whatever such literature 
may have been half a century or more ago — and 
from some of its survivals one can hardly call it 
virile — of late years the books which have been 
distributed among the members of Sunday schools, 
although not always of any particular literary 
excellence, have certainly not merited the indis- 
criminate ridicule and condemnation to which 
they have been subjected. Yet they are far from 
being ideal. The rank and file of Sunday-school 
libraries have been composed either of indiffer- 
ently written books of stories, intended to incul- 
cate such moral lessons as should be learned by 
the young, or of a haphazard collection of second- 
hand books presented by well-meaning friends 
much as they would present cast-off clothing to 
the poor. 

Without entering into any discussion as to 
172 



FOR THE SUNDAY SCHOOL 173 

whether such libraries are better than none — The two 

. . . , t principles to 

which is very possible — two principles may be be recognized : 
laid down which must always be recognized in 
this connection. 

In the first place, whether or not the public *• The 
library contains such works, every Sunday school should be 
should have a collection of books which will actu- educational 
ally assist it to fulfil its educational function. If 
public schools need libraries, so do Sunday 
schools, and for the same reason — the assistance 
they can render in teaching and in study. Text- 
books, even the best of them, need to be supple- 
mented by works dealing more fully with specific 
matter, and in a Sunday school in which the curric- 
ulum is graded, the need is all the greater. 
Few teachers and fewer pupils can be expected B ° oks of 

11 L reference 

to purchase works of reference. They should be 
supplied by the school itself. Even if such libra- 
ries were small and limited in use to teachers, 
their influence and help would be considerable. 
The mere sight of books dealing with the sub- 
jects of study is a stimulus to study. Any 
instruction of teachers that is more than a 
" cramming " process for the next Sunday's les- 
son imperatively demands that there be ready 
for use a collection of books which may be em- 
ployed by the teacher in the investigative study 
to which he must frequently be driven, or for the 
other purposes which real study presupposes. 



174 



PRINCIPLES AND IDEALS 



The sort 
of books 
demanded 



2. Social 
needs may be 
met by the 
library 



The same principle applies in the work of pupils. 
They too should be inducted, as far as their 
interests warrant, into the rapidly growing litera- 
ture dealing with biblical matters. Just what 
these books should be will need to be determined 
in each case by the Director of Instruction, as- 
sisted by a well-chosen committee, but they 
should include introductions to the Old and New 
Testaments, histories of biblical times, lives of 
Christ and Paul, readable but scholarly commen- 
taries, and above all a good dictionary of the 
Bible. To such books as these there should be 
added illustrative material such as maps and 
photographs (or photographic reproductions) of 
biblical places and scenes. There should be 
added also works of a more general interest, such 
as outline histories and discussions of theologi- 
cal and educational subjects. Finally, if such a 
library as this is in any way to circulate among 
the members of the school, it should abound in 
duplicates. 

The second principle that may be said to 
govern Sunday-school libraries is this : the ques- 
tion as to whether, in addition to this reference 
and study library, a Sunday school should 
attempt to furnish general reading for a commu- 
nity is a matter of philanthropic policy to be 
classed with the matter of establishing a boys' 
club or a public kindergarten. If there is no 



FOR THE SUNDAY SCHOOL 175 

public library in the vicinity of the school, or 
none which furnishes the classes of books which 
the members of the school need, and if they have 
no means of obtaining suitable reading, then the 
school may very well supply the need. In such 
a case its obligation arises from a general social 
need, and the class of books it should place at The sort 
the disposition of the community should not be demanded 
exclusively religious. It should seek to supply 
good literature of all sorts — fiction, history, 
essays, biography, travels, poetry. If it has suit- 
able accommodations, it might even open a read- 
ing-room every day and evening of the week. 
There is nearly always a need of some social 
service of this sort, and happy is the Sunday 
school which is blessed with such leaders and 
facilities that it may render it. 

One proviso of great importance should be The* 'reading 
added. In choosing books for such a general 
library as this, all volumes should be selected by 
a committee, and each volume should be read 
and approved by at least two persons — three 
would be better — before it is purchased and put 
into circulation. If such a committee is well 
chosen, the library may become an object of pride 
as well as real help to the school, and through it 
to the community. 



CHAPTER VI. 

SUNDAY-SCHOOL BENEVOLENCE, 
The conven- Xhere are few, if any, Sunday schools in which 

tional view of 

Sunday-school the pupils are not asked to contribute money for 
benevolence Qne Qr more purposes, especially for the purchase 
of lesson helps, and for the other necessary mat- 
ters of Sunday-school administration. In some 
schools an attempt is made to systematize the 
various collections by a double system of envel- 
opes, one of which is used for money devoted to 
the expenses of the school, and the other for 
benevolence. In most schools, however, the 
money is contributed by the pupils convention- 
ally, with little or no knowledge of the purpose 
to which it is appropriated. As a result the sum 
is small, and whatever educational power might 
belong to the custom is lost. 
Education in In reality, the giving of money in the Sunday 

benevolence 

in the Sunday school fulfils its proper function only when it is 
school regarded as a part of the educational work of the 

school. Not that the training in benevolence 
finds its ultimate aim in the reflex influence on 
the giver; this would be to convert benevolence 
itself into a subtle and refined selfishness. But 
inasmuch as the spirit of genuine, outgoing benev- 

176 



FOR THE SUNDAY SCHOOL 177 

olence must itself be cultivated, and inasmuch as 
the Sunday school has for its object the training 
of the pupils in Christian character, it is fitting 
that all the giving in the Sunday school should 
have as a part of its aim the creation and develop- 
ment of this spirit. For a child to give money 
merely because a parent has given him a cent or 
two for the purpose is almost as bad as not to 
give at all. In fact, it may be even worse, for 
often it becomes a subject of ridicule. 

Regarded as a part of the moral and religious The expenses 
education of a child, the benevolence of the Sun- of , a s 1 un u day 1J 

school should 

day school should first of all be benevolence, not be borne by 
contribution exclusively to the expenses of the 
school. Of course, at this point there is involved 
the whole matter of the relation of the Sunday 
school to the church. In many ^places the two 
are practically independent, if not rivals, the 
pastor and officers of the church having little or 
no control over the management of the school. 
Such a divorce of the two institutions is unfortu- 
nate, and tends to create friction. It is a matter 
of congratulation that in many churches today 
the Sunday school is regarded as a department of 
the church, its superintendent, and perhaps other 
officers, being elected by the church just as the 
deacons and the trustees are. If once this point 
of view be taken, it is difficult to see why a church 
should not make appropriations for lesson helps 



i 7 8 



PRINCIPLES AND IDEALS 



How to 

awaken 
interest in 
objects of 
benevolence 



and other aids to Sunday-school work from the 
funds of the church itself. But in most churches 
the financial question is one of importance, and 
even though the Sunday school be regarded as a 
department of the church, and under the reli- 
gious direction of the church officers, it will be 
expected to meet a portion of its expenses. 
There are even advantages in this to the child 
himself, as we shall endeavor to point out a little 
later, if only the matter be treated in a peda- 
gogical way, and not left to the inertia of mere 
custom. 

As a part, then, of the moral and religious 
training of the child, the benevolence of the Sun- 
day school should cultivate genuine, unselfish, 
thoughtful giving. This involves the giving of 
that which has real value in the eyes of the giver, 
interest in the persons affected by the gift, and 
in due time an intelligent choice among various 
objects of benevolence. It is a great mistake to 
train a child in habits of perfunctory and thought- 
less giving. The charity that consists in giving 
away old clothes and toys which the child no 
longer needs or cares for, to persons of whom he 
knows nothing and in whom he feels no interest, 
has little value to the recipient and is almost 
wholly destitute of educational value for the giver. 
It may even be harmful to both, embittering the 
recipient and producing in the giver a pride and 



FOR THE SUNDAY SCHOOL 179 

self-satisfaction that is as selfish in the child as it 
is in the adult. 

The child should be made to have an interest Let the 
in the object to which he is contributing. There benevolence 
are many ways, of course, of accomplishing this, be defimte 
but perhaps the most necessary requirement is 
that the object be definite, and so presented to the 
child as to enable him to form a distinct con- 
ception of its need of assistance. There is, of 
course, a large need for arousing children's inter- 
est — for example, in the general cause of mis- 
sions — but the surest way of accomplishing this 
end is not by discussing the matter in a broad 
way, which might very well appeal to men and 
women, but in the presentation of a certain definite 
field, or, better still, of a certain definite school 
or church or worker. Some schools, for example, 
have very little difficulty in supporting a native 
preacher in some foreign field. Other schools 
send specific sums to certain specific schools for 
certain definite purposes. It makes little differ- 
ence what the object is, provided that its needs 
are so definitely stated that the pupils are aroused 
to the sense of need and to a desire to help. 

But interest is, after all, but one element in Training in 
the education in benevolence. As the child choice in 
grows into maturity, he will find that the great benevolence 
need in charitable work is a rational choice as to 
what he shall help. The habit of making such 



i8o 



PRINCIPLES AND IDEALS 



Let the 
pupils discuss 
and vote 



Self-support 



choice, and not trusting to a momentary impulse, 
is one which should be cultivated in the child 
from the moment when he begins to give, and 
probably the most effectual way of inducing 
such a habit is for the person who has the benev- 
olence of the Sunday school in charge to present 
to the school two or three objects to which the 
school's contributions can be appropriated, letting 
the school itself decide by a majority of votes as 
to which object shall receive the money. If it 
be possible, it would be well by a little judicious 
prearrangement to cause a discussion to spring 
up over the various subjects suggested, in order 
that the arguments for each, and the relative im- 
portance and need of each, may be definitely un- 
derstood by the members of the school before 
voting. In fact, simply to have a formal vote in 
which the children on the impulse of the moment 
decide, under the direction of their elders, is 
bad. At the very least each subject should be 
presented carefully by some competent person, 
and the vote taken by ballot immediately after 
the presentation of the proposed objects, or the 
following Sunday. It would be a great mistake to 
think that children will not be interested, and that 
they will vote without having definite reasons. 

But while the pupil is thus trained to give for 
objects wholly outside the sphere of his own self- 
interest, parallel with this training it is eminently 



FOR THE SUNDAY SCHOOL 181 

wise that he should become accustomed to give 
for other things from which he himself de- 
rives benefit. If he gives a part of his contri- 
butions for the purchase of books and papers, 
and other like expenses of the Sunday school 
itself, this will gradually bring home to his mind 
the fact that the maintenance of the Sunday 
school costs money, and gradually inculcate the 
principle of self-support, and so prepare him in 
maturer years to take his share in the mainte- 
nance and support of the church. While every 
school has its own general system for benevo- 
lence, the following plan may be worth consid- 
eration : Divide the total amount contributed by Specific 
the school into three parts, one part to be used su ^ estlons 
for the expenses of the school, the second to be 
appropriated as a whole to some definite object 
which has been selected by the school, and the 
third portion to be kept as a fund from which 
special appropriations can be made by the school 
to such various objects as may be presented. A 
special collection for a definite object of charity 
is likely to be the worst sort of education in gen- 
erosity, for it increases the dangerous habit of 
giving money upon the impulse of a moment 
rather than deliberately. It is a great safeguard 
for the school to have it distinctly understood 
that no object of charity shall be presented to 
the school without the consent of the committee 



1 82 PRINCIPLES AND IDEALS 

having the benevolence in charge, and that, even 
when objects are presented, any aid given shall 
be taken from a definite fund which must be ad- 
ministered with some attempt at keeping the 
proper proportion between various objects worthy 
of support. 
Theadminis- All this makes it evident that it is impossible 
benevolence to leave the administration of benevolence to the 
haphazard methods of some Sunday schools. 
There should be a committee appointed to have 
the matter in charge, and it will be well to have 
the committee of considerable size, in order that 
as many as possible may be interested in the 
matter. Such a committee should see to it, not 
only that the objects among which the school is 
to choose are carefully presented, but also that 
church festivals, like Christmas, Easter, and 
Children's Day, become new opportunities for 
awakening a new generosity. No Christmas en- 
tertainment should omit the contributions made 
by children to others, and the committee should 
insist that in such contributions the child should 
give away that which is of value, and not merely 
that which is spoiled. By the testimony of all 
schools which have adopted it, this feature is the 
most delightful portion of the Christmas enter- 
tainment. The committee will also see that, 
after these gifts have been contributed, a re- 
port of how they were distributed is made to 



FOR THE SUNDAY SCHOOL 183 

the school, and thus the child's sympathies be 
carried directly to the institution or person to 
whom he has made the contribution. 

Thus regarded as a part of the educational The ; de s ired 

° r result of 

process and administered as a distinct and legiti- these plans 
mate department of the school, the matter of be- 
nevolence will cease to be purely formal, and will 
become as serviceable in the formation of char- 
acter as the study of the lesson itself. 



CHAPTER VII. 



THE FUNCTION OF A SUNDAY-SCHOOL 
RITUAL. 

The ritual of j T would be difficult to find a Sunday school that 

the Sunday r . 

school as an has not some kind or ritual; that is, some kind 
educational Q £ serv i ce m ade up of prayer, music, Scripture 
reading, etc., preceding or following the study of 
the Bible lesson. But what proper place is there 
for such exercises in the Sunday school? The 
Sunday school is an educational institution in 
which the study and teaching of the Bible occupy 
the central place. Why should it have a ritual? 
The answer is, we believe, clear, and important in 
its bearing on the other question, what kind of 
ritual the Sunday school ought to have. The 
Sunday school is an educational institution, but 
the definition must not be taken too narrowly; it 
is not merely a Bible school. Its ultimate and 
comprehensive aim is the moral and religious 
education of the members of the school. To 
this end the teaching of the Bible is one means 
— the chief one, indeed, but not necessarily the 
only one. In such teaching religious education 
is sought chiefly through instruction of the mind, 
through the presentation of the great facts of 

184 



FOR THE SUNDAY SCHOOL 185 

biblical history and the great truths of biblical 
revelation. But education — it is pre-eminently- 
true of the religious side of education — can 
never be purely intellectual. The religious feel- 
ings need cultivation and education as truly as 
the mind requires religious instruction. 

In this fact, and in the comprehensive defini- The education 
tion of the function of the Sunday school as the emotions 
religious education of the pupils, are found at 
once the justification of the ritual and the guid- 
ing principle for determining its character. While 
the teaching hour makes its chief appeal to the 
mind, the ritual service has relation chiefly to the 
cultivation of the emotions. 

Let it not be supposed that the two elements, 
the intellectual and the emotional, can be wholly 
divorced from each other. There must be feel- 
ing, reverence, and love of truth, admiration for 
noble character, detestation of wickedness, in 
connection with the study of the Bible, if this is 
to be most effective. There must be thought 
and even instruction in the ritual, or it will fail 
to make its due appeal to the emotions. But the 
distinction of emphasis remains. Broadly speak- 
ing, the teaching hour appeals to the intellect, 
the ritual service to the feelings. 

What, then, are the feelings which the Sun- The feelings 
day-school ritual should seek to cultivate ? We r j tual sn0 uid 
answer: reverence, adoration, love, penitence, cultivate 



1 86 PRINCIPLES AND IDEALS 

aspiration, hope. Central in the whole service 
must be the aim to bring before the mind the 
thought — a true thought — of God in the per- 
fection of his character, in the majesty of his 
holiness, in the infinitude of his love and mercy. 
This is to be accomplished, not by formal in- 
struction concerning the divine nature, or chiefly 
by the recitation of a creed. It is rather to be 
The means of attained by the reading or recitation of such sen- 
them tences of Scripture as express in exalted and 

poetic language the adoration of those clear- 
sighted and reverent souls who have gained a 
vision of God ; by the singing of hymns in which 
godly men and women have sought to express 
the emotions of their souls ; and by prayer in 
which, whether one speak while the others follow 
only with the mind and heart, or all join in uni- 
son, the hearts of all shall be lifted to God to- 
gether. Such reverent, and, in the proper sense 
of the word, solemn, bringing before the mind of 
the thought of God is calculated as is no other 
means to call forth and develop our religious 
emotions. 

When in an atmosphere, not of cold definition, 
of heated controversy, or of didactic exactness, 
but of elevated and sincere praise, we gain a 
vision of God as the almighty, the ever-living, 
perfect in holiness and boundless in mercy, then 
our hearts learn to revere, to adore, to love. 



FOR THE SUNDAY SCHOOL 187 

Then, too, touched as we never could be by mere 
instruction, we are moved to penitent grief over 
our own sins ; then we long to rise to higher 
planes of life ourselves, to enter into fellowship 
with God himself, and, gaining confidence from 
the contemplation of God's goodness, begin to 
hope that what we long for may still be attained. 
In this atmosphere animosities cease, petty ambi- 
tions die away, and the love to our fellow-men 
that before perhaps seemed impossible begins to 
take possession of the heart. 

What kind of ritual will accomplish these The 
ends ? In the first place, the service must be of a proper 
dignified. By this is not meant that it must be ritual 
cold and dead, but that it must be serious and 
calculated to cultivate seriousness. The precise Dignified 
degree and type of dignity that are expedient in 
any given school must be determined with great 
wisdom in view of the class of pupils of which 
the school is made up. A service that would be Adapted to 
wholly suitable, impressive, and elevating in a Divisions 
school made up of pupils drawn from cultivated 
Christian families might be absurd and impos- 
sible in a mission school in the city or on the 
frontier. Regard must be had to the age of the 
pupils also. Wherever the size of the school and 
the structure of the building permit it, it is desir- 
able that there should be separate exercises for 
different divisions of the school. A service 



1 88 PRINCIPLES AND IDEALS 

adapted to the youngest pupils cannot be con- 
stantly helpful to adults; the converse is even 
more emphatically true. But whatever the age 
or the intelligence of the pupils, the elements 
which compose the service and the manner of 
those who conduct it should both be such as to 
cultivate reverence. Songs that belittle and 
cheapen religion, leaders who turn the service 
into a drill in singing, librarians who distribute 
books while the service is in progress, superin- 
tendents who are unable to maintain control and 
secure quiet — all these tend to defeat the true 
ends of the Sunday-school service. 
Cheerful But while it is dignified, the service ought 

also to be cheerful. Nowhere is a sad and sad- 
dening service more out of place than in the 
Sunday school. Young people are prone enough 
to regard religion as sad and gloomy. The 
Sunday school ought to do nothing which will 
foster this idea. There may be times when it is 
desirable in some part of the Sunday-school serv- 
ice so to emphasize the fact of sin and the need 
of repentance as to give a note of sadness to that 
part. But this should not be the prevailing note. 
The gospel is good news; good news even for 
sinners, since there is forgiveness for those who 
repent. The keynote of the Sunday school 
should be a joyous one. 

The service ought to be one in which all can 



FOR THE SUNDAY SCHOOL 189 

take some part. This is less important in the One in which 
case of the adult division of the school, if its serv- 
ices are held apart from those of the rest of the 
school, than in the other divisions; but it holds 
in general for every part of the school. A service 
which makes its appeal to the feelings from with- 
out may awaken emotion, but to cultivate the 
religious feelings, to educate them, they must be 
given opportunity for expression. Such oppor- 
tunity may be afforded by responsive reading, 
by prayer in unison, by singing. Incidentally, 
this will help in maintaining order and dignity by 
holding the attention and maintaining the interest 
of the pupils. But it has its deeper reason in the 
fact that it is necessary to the attainment of 
the proper educational purpose of the service. 
Finally, the whole service should be character- 
ized by the note of sincerity and reality. Nothing 
should be done in a spirit of vain show. The 
service should not compel the expression of sen- 
timents which those who join in this service can- 
not be reasonably expected actually to entertain. 
It should tend to lift all who join in it to a higher 
moral plane, but it should not seek to do this by 
calling upon them to affirm things which it is 
practically impossible for them to affirm truly. 
There ought, therefore, to be something of flexi- 
bility in the service, and on the part of the leader 
a mind quick to recognize the variations in the 



190 PRINCIPLES AND IDEALS 

Adapted to condition of the school. A service which would 
condition 8 ^ 8 be wholly appropriate in the midst of the relative 
the school relaxation of a summer vacation might be wholly 
unsuitable in a period of intenser religious activ- 
ity and deeper religious feeling in midwinter. 
Sometimes it may be wise to emphasize this ne- 
cessity of sincerity by asking only those to join 
in a certain part of the service who can do so 
sincerely. But to resort to this expedient often 
would cultivate an unhealthy habit of introspec- 
tion or defeat the very end which it was intended 
to secure. 
Music in the A word or two concerning the music in par- 

Sunday school . n/rii i • • ... r 

ticular. Much has been written in criticism of 
the songs in common use in the Sunday school, 
both of the words and of the music. And cer- 
tainly it would be difficult to speak too severely 
of many of these songs. But in truth what 
needs to be said about the music is simply what 
we have already said concerning the service in 
general. It should be dignified, cheerful, adapted 
to the occasion and to those who are to join in 
it, and hence capable of being shared in by all, 
above all pervaded by the note of sincerity. If 
it meets these conditions it will exclude both the 
weakly sentimental songs which help either to 
emasculate religion or make it repulsive, and the 
"catchy" tunes which are fitted rather to the 
street ballad than to the hymn. It may be laid 



FOR THE SUNDAY SCHOOL 191 

down as a rule to which there are few excep- The hymn 
tions, at least above the kindergarten, that the be considered 
songs of the Sunday school should be real lyrics, 
not religious ballads. But the principle of adapta- 
tion to the age of pupils applies here only less 
strictly than in the matter of instruction. It is as 
absurd to ask children of ten years to sing hymns 
reflecting the experiences of mature men and 
women as to ask their fathers and grandfathers 
to join in distinctively children's songs. Some 
hymns of praise are perhaps adapted to old and 
young alike. But the musical service of the 
school can be what it ought to be only when 
there is some separation of the school into divi- 
sions for the service as well as for the teaching. 
Each division needs its own hymns, and these, 
while always real hymns, should be adapted to the 
relative maturity of the members of that division. 

The ritual of the Sunday schools is deserving The neglect 
of the most careful study on the part of all who 
are interested in promoting the efficiency of the 
Sunday school. Important and central as is the 
study of the Bible, the ritual has yet its own 
distinct educational value, and should never be 
crowded into the position of a mere appendage 
to the teaching hour. The experiment has been 
tried in some schools of dividing the Sunday- 
school hour into two quite distinct portions, the 
first given to the teaching of the lesson, preceded 



i 9 2 PRINCIPLES AND IDEALS 

The double perhaps by a single hymn or a brief prayer; the 
second to the service, thus securing greater con- 
tinuity and impressiveness, and avoiding the 
conversion of the opening exercises into a mere 
leeway for the arrival of tardy teachers and 
pupils. It has been eminently successful in some 
cases, and is worthy of serious consideration by 
other schools. The employment of a printed 
order of service, varied from time to time, has 
likewise been found to be helpful in many schools. 
But whatever the methods employed — and no 
one method will be adapted to all schools — the 
improvement of the ritual is one of the pressing 
needs in Sunday-school work. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

THE TEACHING MINISTRY. 

Is our title a misnomer? Is the word "minis- The ministry 

ter" synonymous with '" preacher ?" The ideal lament* times 

church of the New Testament is one in which 

each member is fitted by the Holy Spirit for a 

particular function, or kind of service, for the 

good of the whole body, and each is performing 

that function. Prominent among these functions 

in the New Testament times were those of apostle, 

prophet, pastor, teacher, evangelist, the two 

functions of pastor and teacher being apparently 

closely associated. The apostolic function, as it 

existed in the apostolic age, ceased with that age, 

its nearest modern analogue being that of the 

missionary. To the work of the prophet, who 

stood forth with his message from God to speak 

to the people on behalf of God, the work of the 

modern preacher corresponds most closely. The 

pastoral function is represented by the pastor as 

the leader and shepherd of the people, and by all 

those who join with him in like service. Of the 

work of the evangelist it is not needful to speak 

here. 

But what has become of the teacher ? He has 
193 



i 9 4 PRINCIPLES AND IDEALS 

The his representatives, no doubt, in the Superintend- 

disappearance ~ . 

of the teacher ent of the Sunday school and in the teachers 
who work under his oversight. But what means 
does the church employ to see that it is provided 
with competent teachers ? In the early days of 
the church, prophets, pastors, evangelists, and 
teachers alike sprang from the body of the church, 
and entered upon their work without special 
training for it. Little by little, under the guid- 
ance, as we believe, of the same Spirit that in the 
beginning gave to the church apostles, prophets, 
pastors, and teachers, it has come to be recog- 
nized that, in order to render the service to which 
they are called, missionaries and pastors and evan- 
gelists and preachers must be trained for their work. 
But by a singular oversight, difficult to account 
for, the teacher, in the sense in which the word is 
used in the New Testament, has apparently been 
overlooked. We have trained teachers of math- 
ematics and history and pagan literature in our 
colleges and academies. We have teachers of 
the Bible and history and theology in our theo- 
logical schools. But the religious teachers of the 
3'oung in the church and Sunday school have 
been left in large part without training. Our 
preachers and pastors to whom by eminence we 
apply the term "minister" have as a rule had some 
sort of special training for their work ; and even 
in those rare cases in which a man steps at once 



FOR THE SUNDAY SCHOOL 195 

from some other occupation into preaching and 
pastoral work he is enabled by the exclusive de- 
votion of himself to his work to be constantly- 
training himself for it. But in how many churches 
is there found a teacher, or one in charge of the 
teaching work, who has been trained for it by 
years of study, or who is enabled to train himself 
for it by the devotion of his whole time and en- 
ergy to it ? Churches that have but one minister 
who devotes his whole time to the service of the 
church demand that he be a good preacher and 
a good pastor. Who ever asks whether he is a 
good teacher ? In the larger churches, in which 
there are two or more ministers, one of whom as- 
sumes special responsibility for the preaching, 
and the others of whom are engaged in different 
forms of pastoral service, it is insisted that each 
shall be fitted for his special work. In how many 
churches is there also a trained minister engaged 
in and in charge of the work of teaching? There 
are a few such, but they are very few. 

Is there any justification for this relatively This 
greater emphasis on the preaching and pastoral depreciation 
ministry as compared with the teaching ministry? unjustifiable 
Certainly not in the New Testament. Certainly 
not in the needs of the church today. There is 
no need to underestimate the work of the pro- 
phetic and the pastoral ministers in order to set 
the teaching ministry in its true light. Their work 



196 PRINCIPLES AND IDEALS 

is most important, most divine and helpful; most 
necessary " for the perfecting of the saints, unto 
the work of ministering, unto the building up of 
the body of Christ." But is it more important, 
more influential on the future of the church and 
the world, than the teaching of the young, whose 
ideas of truth are as yet in process of formation, 
whose characters are still plastic and sensitive, 
whose future is now in the making? And is this 
teaching work so much less important than the 
preaching and shepherding work that, while we 
rightly demand of the preacher and the pastor 
that he spend anywhere from two to ten years in 
preparing for his work, the work of teaching can 
be committed to men and women most of whom 
never spent three months in any special preparation 
for their work, and whose work is performed un- 
der the guidance of a Superintendent who is, in 
the majority of cases, equally innocent of prepa- 
ration ? It is impossible to believe that this state 
of things is sound. One can only marvel that it 
has been permitted to continue so long. 
The remedy But what is the remedy ? Many teachers are 

needed in the Sunday school. It is impossible 
that they should all spend years of study in 
preparing for their work. True ; but it is not be- 
yond the bounds of possibility, nor is it unrea- 
sonable to demand, that, if not in every church, 
yet in many churches, there should be one thor- 



FOR THE SUNDAY SCHOOL 197 

oughly trained teacher, who should himself The teaching 
teach, oversee the work of the other teachers, pas 
and train them for their work. Such a teaching 
minister is today a necessity to every well-organ- 
ized church. And he needs as thorough training 
for his work as the preacher and the pastor. No 
work in the church can possibly be more respon- 
sible or important than his. Let the teaching of 
the children and youth be in competent hands, 
and we may almost cease anxiety as to who does 
the preaching. In a previous chapter, speaking 
from the point of view of things as they are, each 
church having as a rule but one minister, we have 
insisted upon the necessity of the pastor being 
the teacher of the teachers. We do not retract 
that, but urge as something still better that the 
diversity of function which the New Testament 
recognizes shall be revived and a teaching min- 
istry be built up alongside of the prophetic minis- 
try. If, indeed, a church can afford to support 
only one educated minister, then that minister 
should be just as much a teacher as he is preacher 
and pastor ; he ought to be as thoroughly trained 
for his teaching as for either of the other depart- 
ments of his ministry. And if he is thus trained 
for the teaching work of the church, the Sunday 
school should be as fully under his oversight as 
the preaching or the pastoral work. But if a 
church is able to maintain a plurality of minis- 



198 PRINCIPLES AND IDEALS 

ters it should provide for itself a teaching min- 
ister quite as certainly as a preaching minister, 
and should insist upon his being equipped for his 
work with the same insistence with which it de- 
mands a good preacher. 
The work of But if a church has such a minister, what can 
pastor he do ? In the first place, he can himself give 

instruction. He can teach the adults of the 
church in a service specially devoted to this, and 
the young people in connection with the Society 
of Christian Endeavor or other like organization, 
and the teachers of the Sunday school, giving to 
these latter instruction both in the Bible itself 
and in principles and methods of teaching. Yet 
his greater work must be more fundamental than 
this. It must aim at the conversion of the Sun- 
day school into a genuine educational institution, 
organized and conducted on sound educational 
principles. This will involve the construction of 
a course of study based upon intelligent concep- 
tions of the Bible and broad knowledge of it, as 
well as upon sound pedagogical principles. Then, 
by selecting from among those who are available 
for the work of teaching one or more teachers 
for each year's work included in the curriculum, 
he can set about the training of these teachers, 
each for the particular work which he or she is 
to do. 

Not that each teacher is to know nothing 



FOR THE SUNDAY SCHOOL 199 

but the year's work which he or she teaches. 
To know nothing but this would be to fail of 
really knowing this. Each teacher should, if 
possible, have gone through the whole course of 
study, and in course of time it will be possible to 
limit the selection of teachers to those who have 
already done this. But meantime, and even 
when this is the case, each teacher ought to be 
specially trained for the particular work assigned 
to him or her, and so become really competent 
to do the work thoroughly and well. Thus little 
by little a body of trained teachers may be built 
up, each of whom can do competently his own 
special work. Under the system now generally 
prevalent this is almost impossible, and is becom- 
ing constantly more difficult. 

We do not forget the noble company of in- A word of 
telligent and able men and women who are fa^tafe 
giving time, energy, and ability to the teaching * nd d file of h 
of classes in the Sunday school. They have teachers 
wrought nobly and fruitfully. But the most 
intelligent of them would be foremost in insist- 
ing that the system that lays upon a teacher 
who has had no opportunity for special biblical 
study the task of teaching the prophecy of Jere- 
miah today, and six months hence the book of 
Acts, and the year after, Hebrews or Romans, 
thus demanding knowledge of the whole Bible 
with no opportunity to know thoroughly any part 



200 PRINCIPLES AND IDEALS 

of it, can only be endured till a better plan can 
be devised and put into effect. 
Two urgent The two things indispensable to such better 

needs of the . . . 

Sunday school plan are a teaching ministry for the oversight and 
conduct of the teaching in each church and an 
intelligently constructed curriculum of study. 
Both are so urgently needed that it is difficult to 
assign to either precedence over the other. The 
church ought not to have to wait long for either. 



APPENDIX 



APPENDIX. 



EXAMINATIONS GIVEN IN THE HYDE PARK 
BAPTIST SUNDAY SCHOOL, CHICAGO. 

FOURTH GRADE : THE BOOKS OF THE BIBLE. 

1. What are the kinds of books found in the Bible ? 

2. Place opposite the name of each book the kind of 
book; for example: 



Genesis, History and Story, 

Exodus, 

Leviticus, 

Numbers, 

Deuteronomy, 

Joshua, 

Judges, 

Ruth, 

i Samuel, 

2 Samuel, 

1 Kings, 

2 Kings, 

1 Chronicles, 

2 Chronicles, 
Ezra, 

Nehemiah, 
Esther, 
Job, 

The Psalms, 
The Proverbs, 



Ecclesiastes, 

The Song of Songs, 

Isaiah, 

Jeremiah, 

Lamentations, 

Ezekiel, 

Daniel, 

Hosea, 

Joel, 

Amos, 

Obadiah, 

Jonah, 

Micah, 

Nahum, 

Habakkuk, 

Zephaniah, 

Haggai, 

Zechariah, 

Malachi, 



203 



2o 4 APPENDIX 

Matthew, i Timothy, 

Mark, 2 Timothy, 

Luke, To Titus, 

John, To Philemon, 

The Acts, To the Hebrews, 

To the Romans, James, 

1 Corinthians, I Peter, 

2 Corinthians, 2 Peter, 
To the Galatians, i John, 
To the Ephesians, 2 John, 
To the Philippians, 3 John, 
To the Colossians, Jude, 

1 Thessalonians, Revelation, 

2 Thessalonians, 

3. What kind of stories are found in Genesis ? 

4. Name four famous men in the book of Genesis. 

5. What stories from the book of Judges can you 
name ? 

6. In what book are the stories of Samuel ? 

7. What stories about David do you remember? 

8. Name three Old Testament preachers. 

9. In what city did many of them preach ? 

10. What is the name of the hymn book in the Bible ? 

1 1 . What four books all tell the same story ? 

1 2. Name the story about Jesus which you like best. 
Will the parents please assist the pupils by seeing that 

an honest effort is made to answer these questions? The 
Bible may be used in answering the questions. 

SEVENTH GRADE: THREE GREAT APOSTLES. 

1. Where and why did Paul gather the great collection 
for the Christians at Jerusalem ? 

2. In what way did Paul prove that he was a true 
apostle of Christ ? 



APPENDIX 205 

3. By whom was the Church of Rome probably founded, 
and why did not Paul go there from Corinth ? 

4. How does Paul describe the gospel of Christ in his 
letter to the Romans ? 

5. Describe Paul's return journey from Corinth to Jeru- 
salem, and tell how he was received in Jerusalem ? 

6. What charge did the Jews make against Paul in his 
trial before Felix ? 

7. Why was Paul pleased to speak before Agrippa ? 
Why was Paul not set free ? 

8. Name the principal places passed in Paul's journey 
to Rome. How did Paul encourage the sailors when in 
danger of shipwreck ? 

9. How did Paul spend his time while awaiting his trial 
in Rome ? 

10. What are some of the things in Paul's character 
which you most admire ? 

EIGHTH GRADE: THE GOSPEL OF MARK. 

(To be answered in writing, using the New Testament, if you 
wish, but no personal help.) 

i . Tell what you know about the writer of the second 
gospel. 

2. Who is the first person spoken of in the gospel of 
Mark ? Tell briefly what the gospel says about his way of 
living and his work. 

3. What are the first two events of Jesus' life related 
in this gospel ? 

4. What is the first miracle of Jesus related in this 
gospel ? 

5. Make a list of the miracles of healing (including 
cases of demoniacs) narrated in the first five chapters of 
Mark. 

6. What answer did Jesus give to those who urged 



206 APPENDIX 

him to return to Capernaum (i : 38) ? What is the meaning 
of the answer ? 

7. For what five things did the Pharisees find fault 
with Jesus as related in 2 : 1 — 3 : 6 ? 

8. State briefly how he answered each of these criti- 
cisms. 

9. Write the list of the apostles. Which of these are 
mentioned in the gospel previous to the record of their 
appointment as apostles ? 

10. What answer did Jesus make to the charge that he 
cast out demons by the prince of demons ? 

11. Who did Jesus say were his brothers and sisters ? 

12. Name the parables of the kingdom in the fourth 
chapter of Mark. 

1 3. State what you understand to be the central teach- 
ing of each one. 

14. What reason did Jesus give for teaching in par- 
ables in 4 : 1 0-1 2, and 4 : 2 1 , 22 ? 

15. Tell briefly the story of Jesus calming the storm. 

16. Tell very briefly the story of the Gerasene demo- 
niac. 

17. What was the usual cry of the demoniacs when 
they saw Jesus ? 

18. In what part of Palestine did all the events nar- 
rated in 1 : 14 — 4 : 41 take place ? 

19. In what city are certain of them said to have 
occurred ? Where is this city ? 

TENTH GRADE: THE BOOK OF AMOS. 

1. Where was Amos's home ? 

2. What was his occupation before he became a 
prophet ? 

3. To whom did he preach ? 

4. Name the foreign nations whose punishment he 
announced. 



APPENDIX 207 

5. State the sins which Amos charges against each of 
these foreign nations. 

6. Why did Amos tell Israel of the coming judgment 
upon these foreign nations ? 

7. State the sins Amos charges against Israel in chaps. 
2 and 3. 

8. What was a Nazarite (2:11)? 

9. Who were the Amorites (2:9, 10)? 

10. Where was Bethel and why does Amos in 3:14 
especially select it for punishment ? 



JUN 5 1903 






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